Oberlin: the colony and the college. 1833-1883

mm

Jdi-y^ Ac^/t^ _

OBERLIN:

The Colony and the College.

1833-1883.

By JAMES H. FAIRCHILD,

President of Oberlin College.

OBERLIN, O.
E. J. GOODRICH.

1883.

Copyright, 1883,
By James H. Faikchild.

: Fi

To the few that still survive of those who aided in
laying the foundations at Oberlin, and to the memory of
those who are gone; to the many who helped to rear the
walls, " even in troublous times;" to all who by word, or
deed, or prayer, or gift, during the fifty years, have
shared in the work, this Record is faithfully inscribed.

PREFACE.

Fifty years have passed since a community and a
college were planted together in the woods of North-
ern Ohio. An invitation has gone forth to all who,
during the fifty years, have been numbered with
the Community or the College, to return to the
family heritage for a brief reunion. As a help to-
ward rendering the occasion a season of interest and
profit, this brief record has been prepared. No one
can feel more sensibly than the author the inade-
quacy of the presentation. The struggles and tri-
umphs of the fifty years cannot be written. There
are many single lives that have been wrought into
the work, any one of which could only be inade-
quately presented in a volume like this. The record
as given is necessarily limited to the outward and
visible changes and movements which have marked
the years, while the inward and spiritual history
must be left unrecorded.

And even much that is visible and tangible must
be passed over without notice ; probably facts more
important that some presented in these pages have
been thus omitted. The author has had no personal
interests to serve, no feelings to gratify, no the-
ories to sustain. If important omissions or other
errors shall appear, they must be attributed to im-

b PREFACE.

perfections of apprehension or of recollection. In
general, facts are stated with little exhibition of
authorities. Where such facts have been matters of
record the proper records have been consulted ; but
to a great extent they depend upon personal obser-
vation and memory, and can have no other endorse-
ment. The reader will make due allowance for all
the liabilities involved.

J. H. F.
OBERLIN, May, 1883.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Origin of the Enterprise — Its Founders 9

CHAPTER II.
The Work of the First and Second Years 32

CHAPTER III.

The Accession from Lane Seminary and Consequent En-
largement 50

CHAPTER IV.
The Early Spirit and Thought and Life 78

CHAPTER V.

Attitude and Experiences, Ecclesiastical and Political 97

CHAPTER VI.
Early Missionary Activity 133

CHAPTER VII.
Oberlin in the War 154

8 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIII.

PAGE

Special Features : Coeducation — Manual Labor — Music 173

CHAPTER IX.

The Financial History and Material Development of the Col-
lege and the Colony 204

CHAPTER X.
General College Life — The Earlier and the Later 248

CHAPTER XI.

Persons who have shared in the Work 272

Appendix 3°5

OBERLIN.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. — ITS FOUNDERS.

OBERLIN is known in the world as an institution
of learning and a community, the two having a com-
mon origin and a common history. As seen to-day,
it is a pleasant village of thirty-five hundred inhab-
itants, surrounded by a prosperous farming commu-
nity, in the midst of which stands a college with its
various departments, theological, collegiate, prepara-
tory, and musical, and an average yearly attendance
of twelve to fifteen hundred students.

The foundations of the college and the town were
laid together, in the spring of 1833, in what was then
an unbroken forest, in the south part of the town-
ship of Russia, county of Lorain, and state of Ohio.
The tract of land secured for the purpose was three
miles square, with a very level surface and a some-
what stiff clay soil, entirely covered with the heavy
timber of Northern Ohio, beech and maple predomi-
nating, with a plentiful intermingling of oak, white-
wood, elm, ash, and hickory, and other varieties
usually found in such forests.

The people who took possession of this tract were

IO 0 BERLIN.

a number of Christian families, gathered from the
different New England states, with a few from New
York and Northern Ohio, who came to establish a
colony and an institution of Christian education,
with the added object of making desirable homes
for themselves and their children.

Such a movement, of course, could not spring up
of itself. The projectors and prime movers in the
enterprise were Rev. John J. Shipherd, pastor of the
Presbyterian Church in Elyria, in the same county,
and his associate and friend Philo P. Stewart, exten-
sively known in the country as the inventor of the
Stewart Stoves.

John J. Shipherd was the son of Hon. Zebulon
R. and Elizabeth B. Shipherd, and was born in West
Granville, Washington Co., N. Y., March 28, 1802.
He was carefully and religiously educated, and while
at school at Pawlet, Vt., in preparation for college,
his conscious religious life opened in a conversion
which began in intense conviction and conflict, and
resulted in great peace and joy. From this time to
the end of his days his character and life were marked
with profound earnestness and .restless activity.

He had prepared to enter the college at Middle-
bury, Vt.; and while spending a few days at home,
before leaving for college, under a slight indisposi-
tion, proposing to take a remedy, he swallowed, by
mistake, a poison. By vigorous measures his life
was saved ; but to the end of his days he was afflicted
with persistent irritation of thetoats of the stomach,
and with greatly impaired eyesight. After repeated
endeavors to resume his studies he reluctantly ac-

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. II

cepted the necessity, and turned his attention to
such business as opened to him.

In 1824 he married Miss Esther Raymond, of
Ballston, N. Y., and removed to Vergennes, Vt, to
engage in the marble business. He had assumed
that his poor eyesight, which prevented his reading
more than a few minutes continuously without in-
tense pain, utterly precluded the idea of his prepar-
ing for the gospel ministry. All his prepossessions
and convictions were on the side of a full education
as a requisite for the work, and he resisted decidedly
every intimation that such a duty could be his. But
after a long conflict in his own mind, and many
marked providences, he entered the study of Rev.
Josiah Hopkins, of New Haven, Vt., where he spent
a year and a half, in company with other young men,
in theological study. He had already acquired a
system of short-hand writing, and his associates in
study helped him with their eyes. He adopted the
practice of arranging the heads and subdivisions of
his discourse upon a card, in stenographic charac-
ters, because his eyesight would not permit him to
write in full ; and this practice he maintained through-
out his life. His first year in the ministry was with
the church in Shelburne, Vt. The next two years
he was engaged in the general Sunday-school work
in the state, making Middlebury his headquarters,
editing a Sunday-school paper, and travelling through-
out the state in the work of organizing schools.
Then, under a strong conviction that the " Valley
of the Mississippi " — as the whole country west of the
mountains was then called — was to be the field of

12 OBERLIK

his life-work, he took a commission from the Ameri-
can Home Missionary Society, and " went out, not
knowing whither he went." At Cleveland he fell in
with Rev. D. W. Lathrop, who had just closed his
labors as pastor of the church in Elyria, and upon
his invitation he came to Elyria in October, 1830, and
was installed pastor of the church the February fol-
lowing. During the two years of his pastoral work
at Elyria, he was intensely occupied in revival labors
in his own parish, and in the region round about ; and
under the same restless impulse to hasten the com-
ing of God's kingdom, he tendered his resignation in
October, 1832, and entered upon the work of laying
the foundations at Oberlin, being now thirty years
of age.

Philo Penfield Stewart was born in Sherman, Conn,,
July, 1798, hence was about four years older than
Mr. Shipherd. When ten years of age, on account
of his father's death, he was sent to live with his ma-
ternal grandfather in Pittsford, Vt., and at the age
of fourteen he was apprenticed to his uncle in Paw-
let, Vt., to learn saddle and harness making. In
this apprenticeship he served seven years, with a term
of three months each year in the Pawlet Academy,
a privilege which he greatly prized and thoroughly
improved. Young Stewart had a natural mechanical
bent, and was famed as a whittler in his childhood ;
but the calling to which he devoted these seven years
of his life did not afford scope for his genius, and
had no special attractions for him. Under the in-
fluence of a Christian teacher in the academy, he had
devoted his life to the Master's service ; and after

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 1 3

completing his apprenticeship he experienced a sort
of second conversion, in a conflict with his love of
money, which seemed a natural tendency in his char-
acter. Thus he was prepared, at the age of twenty-
three, to accept an appointment from the American
Board to a mission among the Choctaws in the state
of Mississippi. The journey of almost two thousand
miles to his field of labor he made on horseback, a
pair of saddle-bags containing his whole outfit. The
officers of the Board had furnished him seventy dol-
lars for his travelling expenses. But from the time
of starting he entered upon his missionary work, and
preached the Gospel in the families along the way,
until he reached the Choctaw Nation, at an expense
to the Board of only ten dollars for himself and his
horse.

An important part of his work at the mission was
the superintendence of its secular affairs, for which
he was well fitted. In addition he taught the boys'
school, and with the help of an interpreter held ser-
vices on the Sabbath in the different Indian settle-
ments. His health failing, he returned to Vermont
to recruit, but returned again to the mission, in 1827,
with a re-enforcement of one young man and three
young women, whom he took over the long journey
in a wagon, at an expense only slightly greater than
that involved in his own journey six years before.

In 1828 Mr. Stewart, now thirty years of age, mar-
ried Miss Eliza Capen, one of the young women
whom he had taken out to the mission, the pre-
ceding year, from Pittsford, Vt. ; and together they
wrought in the mission two or three years more, when

14 OBERLIN.

Mrs. Stewart's broken health compelled them to re-
turn North and resign the mission work. Still on
the outlook for a field of Christian labor, he corre-
sponded with his old friend, Mr. Shipherd, the com-
panion of his boyhood at Pawlet Academy ; and as a
result, leaving Mrs. Stewart behind, he joined him
at Elyria in the spring of 1832, and became an in-
mate of his family. Thus the two founders of Ober-
lin were trained for their work, and finally brought
together. They were one in consecration to the
great cause, ready for any sacrifice which the work
required ; were alike in their general views of the
wants of the world and the aim of Christian labor;
were both born reformers, strongly impressed with
the conviction that the Church as well as the world
needed to be lifted up to a higher plane of life and
action, and with an intense purpose to make their
own lives contribute to this result.

In constitution and natural movement they were
greatly unlike. Mr. Shipherd was ardent, hopeful,
sanguine, disposed to underestimate difficulties and
obstacles ; while Mr. Stewart was slow and cautious,
apprehensive of difficulties, and inclined to provide
for them in advance. It is rare that two men unite
in a common enterprise who are more unlike in
natural temperament. They had entire confidence
in each other, in respect to rectitude of heart and
purpose; yet their co-operation doubtless involved
some difficulty. A brief extract from a letter from
Mr. Stewart to Mr. Shipherd, written soon after
they had entered upon the Oberlin work, gives inti-
mation that they sometimes felt the difficulty : " The

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 1 5

letter was no less acceptable because it contained a
complaint against your poor, erring brother. I thank
you for opening your mind so freely — hope you
will always do so. Then, when you have occasion
to find fault with what I say or do, if I cannot give
a justifiable reason for my conduct, I will confess.
The difference in our views of things arises, no doubt,
from the cause which you stated, and as long as we
co-operate together we shall doubtless often feel like
complaining of each other. But if these complaints
are given and received in Christian love and kind-
ness, no injury will be done. You acknowledge that
you are constitutionally inclined to go too fast, and
I acknowledge that I am disposed, from the same
cause, to go too slow. If this be true, a word of ad-
monition now and then from each other may be
salutary. . . . But after all, I would not have you
like me in your constitutional temperament, if I
could. I think we may balance each other, and be-
come mutual helps. If you should occasionally feel
a little impatience at my moderation, and I at your
impetuosity, it would not be strange ; but if we are
always in the exercise of that charity which hopeth
all things, it will be well at the last."

During the summer of 1832 these two men talked
and prayed together over the wants of the world,
and especially of the " Mississippi Valley," and grad-
ually there grew up in their minds a scheme of a
community and school where their ideas of Christian
living and education could be realized. Mr. Ship-
herd was especially interested in the establishment
of a community of Christian families, from which, to

1 6 OBERLIN.

a great extent, worldly influences should be excluded,
and where gospel principles should prevail in place
of worldly views and fashions. At times he seemed
to incline even to a community of property, as the
surest means of overruling selfishness, and subordi-
nating all interests to the common good. It was no
part of his plan to concentrate the interests of the
community upon itself. His thought was to estab-
lish a centre of religious influence and power for the
generation of forces which should work mightily
upon the surrounding country and the world — a sort
of missionary institution for training laborers for the
work abroad.

Mr. Stewart, on the other hand, was especially at-
tracted by the idea of a school where study and
labor should be combined, and the whole establish-
ment conducted upon such principles of thrift and
economy, that enterprising students could defray
all their expenses by their labor, without any detri-
ment to their progress in study. His mind re-
verted to the academy in Pawlet, Vt., where he
had spent six hours a day in the schoolroom, and
almost as many in his uncle's shop, and still made
satisfactory progress in study. The same academy
furnished an example of young men and young
women pursuing study together, in the same school
and the same classes, with increased interest and
profit, as he thought, on both sides ; and thus his
ideal school must involve manual labor and co-
education.

Mrs. Shipherd shared in their consultations and
prayers, and in a brief record of those times she thus

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. I J

gives the scene in which the diverse views became
consolidated into a common plan :

" In their deliberations they would exchange
views ; one would present one point of interest and
another a different one. Mr. Stewart proposed a
college, of which Mr. Shipherd could not at first see
the necessity, as Hudson College was in its infancy,
and poorly sustained ; but Mr. Stewart suggested
the manual-labor system, which Mr. Shipherd fully
approved. Thus they labored and prayed, and while
on their knees asking guidance, the whole plan de-
veloped itself to Mr. Shipherd's mind, and before
rising to his feet he said, ' Come, let us arise and
build.' He then told Mr. Stewart what had come
into his mind — to procure a tract of land and collect
a colony of Christian families that should pledge
themselves to sustain the school and identify them-
selves with all its interests. They came down from
the study, and Mr. Shipherd, with a glowing face,
said, ' Well, my dear, the child is born, and what
shall its name be ? ' He then related what had passed
through his mind."

John Frederic Oberlin, a German pastor of Wald-
bach, in the Vosges Mountains, in Eastern France,
had died a few years before, and an interesting ac-
count of his labors in elevating the people of his
parish had been published in this country,as a Sunday-
school book. This little volume had been recently
read in Mr. Shipherd's family, and thus Oberlin
was adopted as the name of the establishment which
was yet to be.

The earliest known presentation of the purpose

1 8 O BERLIN.

and plan is found in a letter from Mr. Shipherd to
his father and mother, dated Elyria, August 6, 1832,
as follows :

" I have been deeply impressed of late with the
certainty that the world will never be converted till
it receive from the Church a better example, more
gospel laborers, and more money. We do not now
keep pace with the increase of population in our
own country. Something must be done, or a millen-
nium will never cheer our benighted world. The
Church must be restored to gospel simplicity and
devotion. As a means which I hope God would
bless to the accomplishment of some part of this
work, I propose through his assistance to plant a
colony somewhere in this region, whose chief aim
shall be to glorify God, and do good to men, to the
utmost extent of their ability. They are to simplify
food, dress, etc., to be industrious and economical,
and to give all over their current or annual expense
for the spread of the Gospel. They are to hoard up
nothing for old age, or for their children, but are
mutually to covenant that they will provide for the
widowed, orphan, and all the needy as for themselves
and families. They are to establish schools of the
first order, from the infant school up to an academic
school, which shall afford a thorough education in
English and the useful languages ; and, if Providence
favor it, at length instruction in theology — I mean
practical theology. They are to connect workshops
and a farm with the institution, and so simplify diet
and dress that, by four hours' labor per day, young
men will defray their entire expense, and young wo-

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 1 9

men working at the spinning-wheel and loom will
defray much of their expense. And all will thus
save money, and, what is more, promote muscular,
mental, and moral vigor.

" In these schools all the children of the colony are
to be well educated, whether destined to professional
or manual labor; for those designing to be mechan-
ics will learn their trades while in a course of study.
These schools will also educate school-teachers for
our desolate Valley, and many ministers for our dying
world ; also instruct the children and youth of the
surrounding population. To do this we want some
twenty-five or more good families, and two thousand
dollars' outfit for the schools. Dear parents, shall I
try ? I do feel that such an establishment would
not only do much itself, but exert a mighty influence
upon other churches, and lead them along in the
path of gospel self-denial.

" I have given you but a brief and imperfect sketch,
but you will discern its bearings. In all this Brother
Stewart, formerly assistant missionary to the Choc-
taws, is with me."

In a letter to his mother, dated a month later, he
says :

" My confidence in the utility of our colonizing
plan is strengthened by prayer, meditation, and con-
ference with the intelligent and pious ; yet I feel that
it is a mighty work, difficult of accomplishment.
But when any one goes about a great and good
work Satan will roll mountains in his way. Believ-
ing that all he has rolled in our way can be sur-
mounted through the grace of God, and that I can

20 OBERLIN.

do more for His honor and the good of souls in this
valley of dry bones by gathering such a colony and
planting it, with its literary and religious institutions,
in this region, I am inclined, Providence favoring,
to resign my charge, and spend the winter at the
East for the purpose."

The resignation followed, and was accepted by the
church, October 29, 1832. These two men then
addressed themselves without delay to the work of
putting forward their favorite enterprise. In the
selection of a location the general fact had already
been determined in their minds that they were to
build somewhere in Northern Ohio, and on the West-
ern Reserve ; but the definite site remained to be
selected. Judge Ely, of Elyria, proposed to Mr.
Shipherd to give for the purpose the land which now
forms the beautiful portion of the village known as
" The Point," but which was then covered with a
dense forest. Another site proposed was in Brown-
helm, to be constituted of two or three farms lying
on the beautiful North Ridge Road. But neither of
these situations gave sufficient scope to Mr. Ship-
herd's ideal community. There must, in his view, be
room, for a score or two of farms, for the public
grounds of a large school, and for the village centre
which such a community would naturally form. It
was also essential to his idea, that this community
should have opportunity to develop its own social
life, and its social and religious institutions, apart
from any community already constituted. Hence
a considerable tract, remote from existing settle-
ments, must be secured. To buy out any such

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 21

settlement with its improved lands seemed impos-
sible.

The earliest immigrants to this region had natural-
ly taken up the more accessible and more desirable
portions of the country — the shore of the lake, the
pleasant ridges running parallel to the shore, and
the banks of the larger streams. The level clay
land of the south part of Russia township remained
in its primitive state, and the proprietors had
offered, upon certain conditions, five hundred acres
of this land for educational purposes. The day fol-
lowing the season of prayer in which light seemed to
fall upon their project, Messrs. Shipherd and Stew-
art mounted their horses, and took their course
through the woods, about eight miles, to this undis-
turbed portion of the forest. The line of a road,
north and south, through the tract had been marked,
years before, by a party of surveyors, who felled the
trees for a breadth of about four rods ; and this road-
way was now grown thickly over with bushes. At
a certain point on the west side of this roadway, our
friends dismounted, tied their horses to a tree, and
knelt under the boughs of another, in prayer for di-
vine guidance. A hunter came up soon after, who
informed them that about ten minutes before they ar-
rived, a black bear with her two cubs had come down
the tree to which they tied their horses. How our
friends interpreted this omen we are not told, but
they settled upon this ground for the Oberlin that
was to arise; and an undisputed tradition, running
back to the earliest days of the settlement, designates
the beautiful elm near the south-east corner of the

22 OBERLIX.

college park as the tree under which they knelt to
pray. That brush-covered road is now Main Street,
in the village of Oberlin.

Messrs. Street & Hughes, the owners of this tract,
resided in New Haven, Conn. Captain Redington,
of South Amherst, about six miles north, was their
agent for the sale of the land ; but in a transaction of
such importance it seemed necessary to treat with
the proprietors themselves. The colonists, too, who
were to take possession of this portion of the wil-
derness, must come chiefly from the East. The de-
sirable Christian families in the region had already
passed through the experience of an emigration, and
the work of making homes in the heavy-timbered
country ; and one such experience, however enjoy-
able, suffices in general for a lifetime. Hence those
must be appealed to who could look with com-
placency upon such an enterprise. Such people
lived in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachu-
setts, and Mr. Shipherd had a wide acquaintance
among them. Hence a journey must be made to
New England for the threefold purpose of securing
the land, the money, and the men. In November,
1832, Mr. Shipherd undertook this journey.

The decision to launch out thus upon an untried
experiment cost him a struggle. He was naturally
hopeful and sanguine. His life-long habit had been,
to depend upon Divine guidance, as indicated in
some inward conviction or illumination. The evi-
dence that he was to go forward was, to his mind,
unquestionable. The plan of the enterprise he had
accepted as divinely given, and through all his re-

HISTORIC ELM.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 2$

maining years he was accustomed to refer to it as
the pattern shown him in the Mount. But thus far
he had little human sympathy in his undertaking.
As a devoted servant of God, and an earnest and
effective preacher of the Gospel, he had, during the
two years of his residence in Elyria, secured a wide
influence. He possessed the confidence of the min-
isters and the churches of the region. But the
scheme of a college and a colony, to be located in
the wilderness, which he presented as the reason for
his resignation of the pastorate, seemed too vision-
ary to command the respect of reasonable and pru-
dent men. His earnestness and devotion and
intense conviction could scarcely save it from ridi-
cule. Here and there a single person was brought
into sympathy with his views. This was the situa-
tion when he set out on horseback for his eastern
campaign. Mrs. Shipherd's record gives us some
insight into the inward conflict :

" He had his horse saddled at nine o'clock in the
morning, but was unable to proceed before three in
the afternoon. The adversary assailed him and
presented every possible thing to discourage him ;
he prayed and agonized for light, but the temptation
continued. He finally started, but had to return ;
he had forgotten something, and we had to have a
second parting. The third time he had to turn back,
but I was not aware of it. He finally proceeded on
his way a few miles until he came to a piece of
woods, where he dismounted and fell upon his knees
and acknowledged to the Lord that he had no de-
sire for the work if it was not His will, and that he

24 OBERLIN.

could not proceed until he had a ' Thus saith the
Lord.' He arose from his knees with his heart full
of praise, and remounted his horse with these words,
1 With Jesus at home ;' and this assurance followed
him through all his years of travelling without a
cloud crossing his mind.

" He accomplished the journey and arrived in New
Haven in about two weeks, where he stopped with
friends of ours. The day after his arrival he called
on Messrs. Street & Hughes, and laid his plan be-
fore them, and asked the gift of five hundred acres
for a Manual Labor School, proposing to gather a
colony of families who should pay a dollar and a half
an acre, for five thousand acres in addition, repre-
senting that this would bring their lands into mar-
ket, and thus prove a mutual benefit. But they
could not see the prospect. He called on them day
after day unsuccessfully, until at length he came
down from his room one morning, and remarked to
the lady of the house, our friend, ' I shall succeed to-
day ; ' and she told me afterwards that his face shone
like the face of Moses. He accordingly went over
to the office, and after the morning salutations one
of the firm said, 'Well, Mr. Shiphcrd, we have con-
cluded to accept your proposition.' They adjusted
matters, and he was prepared to proceed with his
work of collecting the colony."

The arrangement was to sell the five thousand
acres, bought for one dollar and a half an acre, to
colonists, at an advance of one dollar an acre, and
thus secure a fund of five thousand dollars for lay-
ing the foundations of the college. But Mr. Ship-

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 2$

herd engaged that from this fund a saw-mill and a
grist-mill should be erected, to be owned by the col-
lege, as these were essential to the very existence
of the colony, and there was no probability that the
mills could be erected as a private enterprise.

It was to be a distinctively Christian colony, and
this was to be secured by personal consultation, on
the part of Mr. Shipherd, with families of farmers and
mechanics in New England churches, who gave
promise of usefulness in the enterprise, and who
could be induced to join it. This feature of the
plan had been criticised in advance by some as an
undesirable arrangement, involving a waste of Chris-
tian influence. It was urged that Christians were
scattered abroad in the community providentially,
for the very purpose of contact with the world, and
the good that results from it. Even Mr. Stewart, in
letters addressed to Mr. Shipherd, while on his east-
ern tour, expresses his own doubts upon this point.
But there was little ground for apprehension in the
matter ; sinners soon found their way to the colony
without an invitation.

To secure colonists of the right stamp, and inspire
them with the true idea of the enterprise, they were
asked to subscribe to the following covenant, called

The Oberlin Covenant.

" Lamenting the degeneracy of the Church and
the deplorable condition of our perishing world, and
ardently desirous of bringing both under the entire
influence of the blessed Gospel of peace ; and view-

26 OBERLIX.

in" with peculiar interest the influence which the
valley of the Mississippi must exert over our nation
and the nations of the earth; and having, as we
trust, in answer to devout supplications, been guided
by the counsel of the Lord : the undersigned cove-
nant together under the name of the Oberlin Colony,
subject to the following regulations, which may be
amended by a concurrence of two thirds of the col-
onists :

" i. Providence permitting, we engage as soon as
practicable to remove to the Oberlin Colony, in Rus-
sia, Lorain County, Ohio, and there to fix our resi-
dence, for the express purpose of glorifying God in
doing good to men to the extent of our ability.

" 2. We will hold and manage our estates person-
ally, but pledge as perfect a community of interest
as though we held a community of property.

" 3. We will hold in possession no more property
than we believe we can profitably manage for God,
as His faithful stewards.

" 4. We will, by industry, economy, and Christian
self-denial, obtain as much as we can, above our
necessary personal or family expenses, and faithfully
appropriate the same for the spread of the Gospel.

" 5. That we may have time and health for the
Lord's service, we will eat only plain and wholesome
food, renouncing all bad habits, and especially the
smoking and chewing of tobacco, unless it is neces-
sary as a medicine, and deny ourselves all strong
and unnecessary drinks, even tea and coffee, as far
as practicable, and everything expensive, that is
simply calculated to gratify the palate.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 2J

"6. That we may add to our time and health
money for the service of the Lord, we will renounce
all the world's expensive and unwholesome fashions
of dress, particularly tight dressing and ornamental
attire.

"7. And yet more to increase our means of serv-
ing Him who bought us with His blood, we will ob-
serve plainness and durability in the construction of
our houses, furniture, carriages, and all that apper-
tains to us.

" 8. We will strive continually to show that we,
as the body of Christ, are members one of another;
and will, while living, provide for the widows, or-
phans, and families of the sick and needy, as for
ourselves.

" 9. We will take special pains to educate all our
children thoroughly, and to train them up, in body,
intellect and heart, for the service of the Lord.

" 10. We will feel that the interests of the Oberlin
Institute are identified with ours, and do what we
can to extend its influence to our fallen race.

"II. We will make special efforts to sustain the
institutions of the Gospel at home and among our
neighbors.

" 12. We will strive to maintain deep-toned and
elevated personal piety, to ' provoke each other to
love and good works,' to live together in all things
as brethren, and to glorify God in our bodies and
spirits, which are His.

" In testimony of our fixed purpose thus to do,
in reliance on Divine grace, we hereunto affix our
names."

28 0 BERLIN.

This was not a church covenant but a colonial
covenant, and secured its end in presenting the pur-
pose of the colony, and in turning away some that
might have been drawn into the enterprise by con-
siderations of these worldly advantages. In so far
as it goes beyond a general expression of Christian
consecration, it subsequently afforded occasion of
earnest discussion, and sometimes, perhaps, of un-
charitable judgment. It was at length found neces-
sary to leave the determination of personal duty in
practical affairs to the individual conscience; and
thus, after a year or two, the covenant was no longer
appealed to, in the settlement of differences of
opinion upon these subjects. It doubtless had its
part in giving form to the social and religious life of
the place.

A prominent plan for raising funds, presented by
Mr. Shipherd, was the establishment and sale of
scholarships. Each donor of one hundred and fifty
dollars was entitled perpetually to the privileges of
the school for a single pupil. This scholarship did
not provide for board or tuition or any other of the
pupil's expenses, but merely secured to him a place
in the school. The pupil must still meet all his
expenses, as if he had no scholarship. The money
paid for the scholarship was to be invested in lands,
buildings, tools, and all the appliances of a manual-
labor school, and the holder of the scholarship was
to be entitled to the advantages which these af-
forded ; and Mr. Shipherd hoped, and encouraged
the donors to expect, that industrious and faithful
students would be able to meet all necessary ex-

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 2g

peases, by their labor. The idea of the scholarship
is thus expressed in his first published circular:

" The one hundred and fifty dollars is the propor-
tion of the outfit money expended to furnish one
individual with the privileges of the Oberlin Insti-
tute. It is therefore reasonable that those who en-
joy these privileges should pay this cost, if able to
do it. It is also right that indigent youth of prom-
ising talent and piety should become the benefici-
aries of scholarships established by others who have
the ability. It should be distinctly understood that
students can be admitted to the boarding and man-
ual-labor privileges of this seminary, only on scholar-
ships established by themselves, their friends, or the
benevolent in their behalf ; and that these scholar-
ships do not guarantee the student's support, nor
any part of it, nor pay his tuition ; but they are so
expended as to furnish board, tuition, books, etc., at
a very low rate, and give the beneficiary peculiar
facilities for defraying the expense of these, by those
services which are necessary, irrespective of support,
to a finished Christian education."

The advantage possessed by the holder of the
scholarship was, the guarantee of a place in the
school. Others were received and enjoyed the same
advantages, but they had no promise of a reception.
During the earlier years, nearly half the applicants
failed to obtain admittance for want of room. The
scholarship system at length became the occasion of
some complaint, when the facilities of the school
were so extended that all applicants could be re-
ceived ; but the complaints were of the same nature

30 OBERLW.

as those of the laborers of the parable, who received
every man the promised penny.

This eastern tour of Mr. Shipherd's to secure
lands, funds, colonists, and students occupied him
through the winter and spring and following sum-
mer, and in September, 1833, he returned to Elyria,
and to Oberlin.

Meanwhile Mr. Stewart, joined by Mrs. Stewart in
the fall of 1832, had remained at Elyria in the care
of Mr. Shipherd's family, and especially occupied in
the work of bringing to perfection a cooking-stove
which he had invented, and which was known as the
Oberlin stove. His original undertaking was to
meet a necessity in Mrs. Shipherd's kitchen, by a
stove made of sheet-iron ; but the work proved so
satisfactory that he extended the enterprise, in the
expectation that his invention would not only prove
useful to the community, but yield a profit which
should contribute materially to the resources of the
new enterprise. This was the beginning of the
Stewart cooking-stove, which has become so well
known throughout the country. It was his expecta-
tion that the success of his invention would warrant
the trustees of the school in taking the pecuniary
responsibility involved, and thus all the profits might
go to the school ; but the trustees never felt author-
ized to assume this responsibility.

While carrying forward the project of the cook-
ing-stove, at Elyria, Mr. Stewart had the general
supervision of the work of the new colony at Oberlin
meeting the colonists as they came forward from
the East with information and counsel and encour-

THE ORIGIN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 3 1

agement, conducting such correspondence as the
progress of the work called for, from this point, and
holding frequent meetings with several gentlemen
of the region who had consented to act as trustees
of the enterprise. Thus the work at Oberlin was
begun.

CHAPTER II.

THE WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS.

The actual commencement of work upon the Ober-
lin tract was made by Mr. Peter P. Pease of Brown-
helm, who, April 19, 1833, with his family, moved
into a log house which he had erected, and which
stood on the south-east corner of what is now the
College Park, near the historical elm. Mr. Pease
was therefore the first colonist. He was also a mem-
ber of the " Board of Trust" already constituted, al-
though the school was as yet without any corporate
existence. The other members of this Board were
Rev. J. J. Shipherd, Hon. Henry Brown of Brown-
helm, Capt. E. Redington of Amherst, Rev. Joel
Talcott of Wellington, Addison Tracy and P. P.
Stewart of Elyria, J. L. Burrell of Sheffield, and
Rev. John Keys of Dover ; and these are the persons
afterwards named as trustees in the charter secured
from the State Legislature.

Mr. Pease at once entered upon the work neces-
sary to prepare the way for the colony and the
school, without reference to his personal interests as
a colonist. He was to make such provision as was
possible for the reception of the colonists as they
should arrive, and superintend and hasten forward
the work upon the building which was to receive the
school. Mr. Shipherd in his ardor had encouraged

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 33

the families coming on to expect that a steam saw-
mill would be in operation in the early part of the
summer of this year, and had assured the purchasers
of scholarships that the school should be opened on
the first of December. When it is remembered that
the forest was not broken in upon until the middle
of the spring months, that the tract was almost inac-
cessible for want of roads, that the entire country
around was new, and that the simplest mechanical
service could not be obtained at any point nearer
than Elyria, eight miles distant, and that there were
no funds to draw upon for the accomplishment of
the work, it will be seen that the undertaking was for-
midable. But these men who constituted the Board
of Trust were among the substantial men of the
county, and the undertaking did not seem to them
preposterous. Mr. Shipherd had somehow infused
into them his own courage and faith. The colonists
left their homes under the same inspiration, and all
who came upon the ground caught the common en-
thusiasm. There was a single exception in the case
of a young man, the first who came upon the ground
from the East, who was very homesick when he
reached Elyria, was not relieved on coming to Ober-
lin, and turned his face homeward in early summer,
greatly disappointed. Such cases must of course
occur, but they were rare.

The following extracts from a letter from the ear-
liest colonists, addressed to Mr. Shipherd, still at the
East, and dated " Oberlin Colony, Ohio, June II,
1833," shows the spirit with which they accepted the
situation :

34 OBERLIN.

" The few sheep that are collected at Oberlin re-
joice at the opportunity of answering your letter
directed to Bro. Pease, which we yesterday received
with pleasure. The inquiries you make are very im-
portant. You ask, ' What are you doing spiritually
to make a moral reform ? ' We answer, ' Very little;
we have but just begun.' Through the good pleasure
of our God we have been preserved and permitted
to set our feet on the colonial ground ; and it is
ground, after all the reports we have heard about
water and mud, although the season has been wet
and cold. We assure you, brother, it is as good as
was recommended to us. We fully believe it will sus-
tain the settlement you propose. We are willing our
brethren from the East should call and see for them-
selves, assuring them, if their motive is to do good
and glorify God in their bodies and spirits, which are
His, they need not be homesick nor look back, but
first give themselves to the Lord and then to the
work.

" We have had meetings every Sabbath since the
commencement — had a visit from Bro. Betts [of
Brownhelm] : he will preach for us every fourth Sab-
bath till you return. Bro. Leavenworth [also from
Brownhelm] preached to us the first Sabbath after
the brethren arrived from Vermont — and a blessed
day it was, for the Lord was here. The people came
in from the east, the west, and the south. The num-
ber from abroad was between twenty and thirty. . . .

" We trust you cease not to pray for us that we may
be guided in every path of duty and usefulness, and
above all that we may love one another with pure

WORK- OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 35

hearts, fervently. . . . Bro. Morgan, from Lockport, ex-
pects to move in to-morrow : we have built his house
on the east side of the road, near the bank of Plum
Creek ;* we live on the west side, opposite. We have
commenced our clearing, beginning at the centre,
and moving south and west ; have about twenty
acres now chopped — four cleared off ; are planting
two of it to corn, more than one we sow to oats and
grass for a little pasture, The remainder is occupied
by two log houses and the site for the boarding-house
and schoolroom. The school [college] will be in the
upper loft ; we have the timber all hewed, but one
day's work. The delay of the mill we regret very
much ; but as all things work together for good, we
hope to acquiesce in all things, and shall endeavor to
arrange all our affairs in accordance with the Divine
will, believing that the Lord will accomplish His own
purpose by us for time and eternity. . . .

"The brethren have mostly selected and procured
their land and are now chopping their village lots,
which will make a pleasant opening on the east side
of the road. We have about fifty cords of wood cut
for the engine. We can say ' Thus far the Lord
hath helped us ; ' may we ever acknowledge Him !
Dear brother, pray for the peace of the colony. We
have a special prayer-meeting every Saturday even-
ing, in which we remember you, and hope to be re-
membered by you."

The writers speak of four Sabbath-schools in neigh-

* Morgan Street, running along the north side of his farm, was
named for him. He died many years ago.

3G OBERLIN.

boring settlements, which they had established or
were about to open. This letter was signed by
all the men then on the ground, as follows: Peter
P. Pease, Brewster Pelton, Samuel Daniels, Philip
James, Pringle Hamilton, Wm. Hosford, Asahel
Munger, Harvey Gibbs, Jacob J. Safford, Daniel
Morgan. Three or four women only were here at
the time. Several of these colonists had come in
advance of their families, to make ready for them.
Several other families joined the colony during the
season.

Mr. Shipherd returned early in September, and re-
moved his family to Oberlin. He had engaged the
number of families that he supposed it desirable to
invite, had enlisted a considerable number of students
who were to join the school at its opening in Decem-
ber or the following spring, had looked up and se-
cured the appointment of the necessary teachers, and
had raised a fund, in contributions and subscriptions,
amounting to nearly fifteen thousand dollars. His
journey back to Ohio was characteristic of the man
and the times. Mrs. Shipherd had gone in the early
summer, with a babe six weeks old in her arms, to
her father's home in Ballston, N. Y. There Mr.
Shipherd joined her in August, and in an open bug-
gy, with a willow cradle at their feet, they made the
journey to Ohio, remembered by Mrs. Shipherd, to
the last, as the most pleasant journey of their lives.
The last two miles of the road before reaching
Oberlin was only a track cleared of underbrush,
winding among the trees, the roots of which extend-
ing across the track made it so rough that Mrs. Ship-

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 37

herd could not keep her seat, and she walked that
portion of the way with her babe in her arms.

The first college building, afterward known as
Oberlin Hall, was already enclosed ; and in a room
about fifteen feet square and seven feet high, in the
basement of that building, Mr. and Mrs. Shipherd
with their four little boys, and another family with
three or four boarders, found their home.

The steam-engine, constructed at Cleveland, was
brought on in October, and the saw-mill was soon in
operation.

The teachers engaged at the East could not come
on in time, and a student from Western Reserve Col-
lege, at Hudson, Mr. John F. Scovill, was invited to
take temporary charge of the school, at its opening;
and on the third day of December, 1833, the school
was opened. This opening was an occasion of solemn
rejoicing on the part of the little community of col-
onists and students. The evening preceding, they
were gathered to ask God's blessing upon the enter-
prise ; and during the progress of the meeting young
Scovill reached the place, and entered the little upper
room where they were gathered together. After list-
ening for a time to prayers and remarks he rose to
speak, and his first words were, " Put off thy shoes
from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is
holy ground."

At this time there were eleven families on the
ground. Several men who had spent a portion of
the summer and autumn here, had returned East,
expecting to bring on their families in the spring.
Forty-four students were in attendance during this

3 8 0 BERLIN.

winter term — twenty-nine young men and fifteen
young women. Half of them were from the East,
the remainder from the neighboring towns. In ad-
dition, a primary school was organized as a depart-
ment of the institution, embracing the children of
the colony, about twenty in number, and taught by
Miss Eliza Branch, now Mrs. Geo. Clark, of Oberlin.
This primary school was in the original plan, but,
after the first winter, it was judged better to leave
the people of the place to provide for the elementary
education of their children, in connection with the
common-school system of the State.

This was the first practical trial of the system of
education which was to be introduced at Oberlin.
The students gathered here were, with few excep-
tions, mature, earnest young people, ready for any
effort or sacrifice necessary in obtaining an educa-
tion, and this continued to be their character through
the years that followed. They entered into the
work with enthusiasm, and identified themselves with
the enterprise. The one wooden building, about
thirty-five by forty feet in its dimensions, with two
regular stories, and a third story called an attic, made
by carrying up the central part about twenty feet in
width, so that small windows could be inserted along
the sides above the main roof — this one building con-
tained the college with all its operations for more
than a year. There was, however, an appendage in
the rear, embracing the kitchen and apartments for
the steward. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart presided in the
steward's department, and had the responsibility of
feeding the inmates. In the basement room, before

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 39

mentioned, lived the corresponding secretary and
general agent, Mr. Shipherd, with his family. His
office, the centre of all business for the college and
the colony, was in the room above, where also the
principal of the school found his study. Across the
hall or corridor was the dining-room, and above was
the schoolroom, chapel, and church, all in one. This
room, the scene of many interesting events and ex-
periences during the two years following, was called
in general " The Chapel." It was the place for the
religious and literary exercises of the school, and for
the gathering of the entire community on the Sab-
bath— a room about eighteen feet wide and thirty-
five long. On every public occasion it was packed
to its utmost capacity. The young women of the
school family were closely quartered in this second
story of the building, over against the chapel, while
the young men were sent into the " attic," where each
pair of them found a room eight feet square, with a
window of six small lights, above the head of the
student as he sat. This room was furnished with
stove, table, two chairs, and turn-up bedstead.
These occupied the entire area when the bedstead
was let down, as at night ; but during the day the
bed was tilted up against the side of the room, and
then there was space to spare.

Of course only sympathy with the enterprise
could make such accommodations tolerable ; but it
is doubtful whether any body of students was ever
more cheerful or better satisfied. A letter from Mr.
Shipherd to his parents, dated December 13, 1833,
gives his views of the situation at this time :

40 OBERLW.

" The Lord is to be praised that we were enabled
to open our institution at the appointed time, De-
cember 3d. We have now thirty-four boarding
scholars, and expect forty for the winter. Appli.
cants are without number, from Lake Erie to the
Gulf of Mexico, and from Michigan to the Atlantic.
The scholars study and work well. Five minutes
after the manual-labor bell strikes, the hammers,
saws, etc., of the mechanical students wake all
around us, and the axe-men in the woods, breaking
' the ribs of Nature,' make all crack. Nearly all our
visitors, and they are not few, express surprise that
so great a work has been wrought here in so short a
time. God be praised. I feel, as I said in my sleep
the other night, ' Oberlin will rise, and the devil can-
not hinder it.' This very sweet assurance, I hope,
rests on God, without whom we can do nothing."

In February of this winter the college was char-
tered by the Legislature of the state, with university
privileges, under the name of the Oberlin Collegiate
Institute. Mr. Shipherd preferred this name as less
assuming than Oberlin College, and because it was
apprehended that it might be some time before regu-
lar college work would be done in the school. Yet
such work and even more was in his plan. In a
circular published March 8, 1834, — the first circular,
probably, that was issued, — he thus states the work
proposed:

" The grand objects of the Oberlin Institute are,
to give the most useful education at the least ex-
pense of health, time, and money; and to extend
the benefit of such education to both sexes and to

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 41

all classes of the community, as far as its means will
allow. Its system embraces thorough instruction in
every department, from the infant school up through
a collegiate and theological course. While care will
be taken not to lower the standard of intellectual
culture, no pains will be spared to combine with it
the best physical and moral education. Prominent
objects of this seminary are, the thorough qualifica-
tion of Christian teachers, both for the pulpit and for
schools ; and the elevation of female character, by
bringing within the reach of the misjudged and neg-
lected sex all the instructive privileges which have
hitherto unreasonably distinguished the leading sex
from theirs."

The name Collegiate Institute was retained for
many years, but as it led to much misapprehension,
as implying that the school had not the full organi-
zation and work of a college, the trustees in 1850
secured from the Legislature a change of the name
to Oberlin College.

The summer term opened May 7, 1834. Rev.
Seth H. Waldo, a graduate of Amherst and of Ando-
ver, who had been elected Professor of Languages,
with the duties of principal of the school until a full
faculty should be constituted, had arrived a few
days before, with his wife, recently married. Three
days after the opening of the term, James Dascomb,
M.D., from the Dartmouth Medical College, reached
the place with his newly married wife. He had re-
ceived the appointment of Professor of Chemistry,
Botany, and Physiology. Mr. Daniel Branch and
Mrs. Branch, a sister of Mr. Waldo, came about the

42 OBERLIN.

same time. He too was a graduate of Amherst.
He was afterward principal of the academy in Ches-
ter, Granger County, where James A. Garfield began
his course of study. Mrs. Dascomb, who had been
a pupil of Miss Grant of Ipswich, afterwards Mrs.
Bannister, was soon made principal of the Ladies'
Department. Mr. Branch became Principal of the
Preparatory Department, and Mrs. Branch teacher
of Latin, French, and of other branches as occasion
required. Thus the new school was at once manned
by a corps of enthusiastic and efficient young teach-
ers, trained in the institutions of New England.
Oberlin, therefore, as a community and a school,
was the product of New England ideas and culture
and life. The founders, the colonists, the students,
and the teachers, were all from New England, most
of them directly, the rest indirectly.

The day before this regular opening, under per-
manent teachers, many students having already
come in, a meeting of the young men was held in
the narrow passage hall of the " attic," each student
bringing out his chair and sitting by his own door,
and a literary society was organized, called the
Oberlin Lyceum — the first literary society upon the
ground. This lyceum existed about two years, and
then gave place to other societies. It was not the
same as the society afterward known as the Lyce-
um, and now as the Phi Kappa Pi. The old lyceum
expired without any legal successor.

During this first summer term, there were one
hundred and one students in attendance — sixty-three
young men and thirty-eight young women. These

DR. JAMES DASCOMB.

MARIANNE P. DASCOMB.

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 43

filled every available corner of the building and the
settlement, and many places which, under other con-
ditions, would not be thought available. Everything
was new and rough. The trees had been cut from
the college square, but the stumps were still strong
in the ground, and so numerous, that an agile boy
might propose to cross the square by springing
from stump to stump. The roads near the centre
had been opened to the sunlight, but not thrown up
or ditched, and teams were sometimes mired in
front of the college building. At a greater distance
the roads were still only tracks through the forest ;
and it was not an uncommon thing even for young
women, coming to the school, to walk the last two
or three miles of the way. Two came from Elyria,
eight miles, in this independent fashion. The en-
thusiasm of the new enterprise made all things
tolerable.

The colony kept even pace in its progress with the
school. Mr. Pelton moved his hotel from the log-
house, first erected, to a comfortable frame building
on the corner now occupied by the principal hotel.
It was for a time a question whether the hotel under
the colonial covenant could furnish tea and coffee
to its customers ; but it was at length concluded
that to refuse would be carrying the principle farther
than was " practicable." Such questions as this, in
the social meetings, diversified the busy life of the
colonists.

A small flouring-mill was erected, to be driven by
the same engine which moved the saw-mill, also
machines for cutting lath and shingles. These ma-

44 OBERLItf.

chines furnished labor for several students ; and the
whole establishment was owned by the college — a
constant source, of course, of annoyance and ex-
pense, but a necessity of the new settlement. As
soon as opportunity offered the mills were sold, and
became the property of individuals.

To meet the growing necessities of the college,
another college building was erected, known in after
years as the Boarding Hall, or Ladies' Hall, the
main part forty by eighty feet, three stories high,
with two wings of two stories each. This was not
made ready for occupancy until the autumn of 1835,
a year, and more, from its commencement. Want of
funds, and the effort to have a large portion of the
work done by students, delayed the enterprise.

It was an encouraging fact to the students and
colonists that, in the midst of these labors and de-
privations incident to the settlement of a new coun-
try, no sickness prevailed among them. There was
some sickness among young children during the
warm weather of 1834, otherwise the health was un-
interrupted. Very satisfactory progress was made
in study ; yet interruptions occurred such as would
be inadmissible under more settled conditions.
When the new boarding-house was to be " raised,"
the students were called out in a body, and all study
was suspended for three days. Now and then a
temperance man in some neighboring settlement,
not finding his neighbors ready to assist him in his
" raising," without the support of the bottle, would
send word in to the students, who would rally at
once in the good cause, and sacrifice a day's study

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 45

to their temperance principles. Oberlin was as ag-
gressive and reformatory at this time as in after
years, only that the direction which its reformatory
efforts should take was not fully determined. Tea
and coffee were excluded from the tables in the
College Hall, and for the most part discarded in
private families. A plain, substantial diet was fur-
nished, at a very moderate expense. The charge for
board in the Hall was seventy-five cents a week, for
a purely vegetable diet, and a dollar for the addition
of meat twice a day.

The first "Annual Report," published in Novem-
ber, 1834, estimates the entire expense of the stu-
dent for all his requirements, except clothing, during
the forty weeks of term time, as ranging from fifty-
eight to eighty-nine dollars. This amount was
readily covered, in most cases, by the avails of the
labor required of the student, four hours each day,
for which he received, according to his skill and
power of accomplishment, from four to seven cents
an hour. The arrangement seemed a great success ;
the expenses were reduced to the minimum, and the
student's labor provided for this. To the apprehen-
sion of the more considerate, there was one draw-
back. This labor of the student was not made to
supply the constant expenditure. It yielded no
money to the college nor even food for the supply
of the tables. It was wholly expended in improve-
ments, the erection of buildings, and the clearing of
the land. These improvements were needed, but it
was a question whether they could be afforded; and

46 OBERLW.

whence was to come the supply for this constant ex-
penditure?

The arrangement of terms and vacations adopted
at this time involved continuous study through the
summer for the regular classes, with a winter vaca-
tion of twelve weeks, and continuous study through
the winter for the junior preparatory department,
with a long summer vacation. This arrangement
was intended to give the advanced students an op-
portunity to take schools for the winter, and those
in the beginning of their course opportunity for
summer work at their homes. This order, with some
variations, was continued until 1878.

The first college class was organized near the end
of October, 1834, consisting of four young men,
who came forward for examination to enter as
freshmen. Two of these had pursued their prepara-
tory studies in an academy at Brownhelm, and in
the Elyria High School ; another was from Phillips
Academy, Andover, Mass. They were all well pre-
pared, for those times, and would have been ad-
mitted to any college in the country.

The first " commencement," or anniversary, was
held on the twenty-ninth of October. As there
were none to graduate, these entering freshmen were
brought upon the stage, and a few others of the
more advanced students. The trustees were pres-
ent, and several visitors from neighboring towns.
The little chapel was crowded. The programme
presented, among other exercises, a Latin oration,
a Greek oration, and a colloquy, the aim of which
was to maintain the orthodox opinion on the sub-

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 47

ject of classical education. Thus closed the school
year of 1833-34.

Early in September of this year a church was
organized, called " The Congregational Church of
Christ at Oberlin," now known as " The First Con-
gregational Church of Oberlin." Sixty-two persons
united at the organization, colonists and students.
The confession of faith was Calvinistic in doctrine,
after the New England type ; and the church con-
nected itself with the Cleveland Presbytery upon
"The Plan of Union," after the fashion of the
churches of Northern Ohio. Rev. J. J. Shipherd
was at once called to become pastor of the church,
but in consequence of pressing duties as correspond-
ing secretary and general agent of the college, his
acceptance of the call was delayed until the follow-
ing year. Meanwhile he officiated as pastor while
present, and in his absence Mr. Waldo, the princi-
pal of the school, usually preached.

Several houses were erected on Main Street and
around the college square, during the year, giving
the town quite the aspect of a village, and Mr.
Hamilton's house, far in the woods, a mile south.
At a colonial meeting the principles of the Oberlin
Covenant were brought to bear upon the question,
What color shall we paint our houses? It was
clearly demonstrated that red was the most durable
and least expensive color; and thus it was voted,
not without earnest remonstrance on the part of
some, that the houses of the village should be
painted red. But a vote on such a question does
not always settle it. Each man claimed the right

48 OBERLIJST.

to act according to his own judgment ; and three
dwelling-houses and the college shop were all the
buildings that ever submitted to the coating of red,
and these only for a few years. So early, under the
Oberlin Covenant, did taste begin to prevail over
stern utility.

Two years had now passed since Mr. Shipherd set
out alone on horseback to realize his plan. The re-
sult thus far was a community of thirty-five families,
a church of above eighty members, a college num-
bering a hundred students, with land and buildings
and other property valued at seventeen thousand
dollars, and such a movement toward the school
that large numbers of applicants had to be turned
away. Here and there appeared indications of dis-
favor toward the enterprise, partly because of the
peculiar constitution of the school, opening its doors
to both sexes, but chiefly because it seemed to come
into competition with Western Reserve College,
which had been established ten years before, and had
pre-emption rights in the territory. Some of the
trustees of Oberlin were warm friends of W. R.
College, and Judge Brown, the first chairman of the
Board at Oberlin, was a prominent founder and
trustee of W. R. College ; but at the close of this
second year he resigned his connection at Oberlin,
because, as he said, he could not " stand between
two fires." The founders of Oberlin were in heart
friendly to W. R. College, and had no thought of
opposition or rivalry. In his first annual report Mr.
Shipherd says : " Being distinctive in its character,
it was thought by the principal of the nearest liter-

WORK OF THE FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 49

ary institution [Elyria High School] to be no more
an interference with that or others in the neighbor-
hood, than if located more remotely. It stands not
as a competitor, but as a sister of all institutions of
Christian science." A little consideration, however,
would have suggested that the two colleges, less
than fifty miles apart, must depend essentially upon
the same constituency. The lines had already be-
gun to be drawn between the friends of W. R. Col-
lege and the friends of Oberlin.

CHAPTER III.

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY AND CON-
SEQUENT ENLARGEMENT.

The college year had closed ; the more advanced
students had gone to their winter schools or their
homes, and the less advanced had, according to the
arrangment, resumed their studies for the winter term.
Mr. Shipherd, under instructions from the trustees,
set his face eastward again, to look for a president
and a professor of mathematics, as well as to secure
funds to meet the growing demands of the work.

In a season of fasting and prayer, his habitual pre-
paration for a new movement, he received the im-
pression that he must go by Cincinnati : an impression
which he could give no account of, and which he at
first resisted as unreasonable. He knew no one at
Cincinnati, and he had special reasons, as he thought,
for going directly eastward ; but the impression in-
creased upon him, until it ripened into a conviction
which he dared not set aside ; and thus he took his
journey to the East by way of Cincinnati — a route
to New York from Northern Ohio which no one per-
haps ever took before.

Having reached Cincinnati, so worn out with the
journey that he was obliged to take his bed for the
day, he at length called on Rev. Asa Mahan, pastor
of the Sixth Street Presbyterian Church, from whom

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 5 1

he soon ascertained the reason for his going by Cin-
cinnati.

A movement had been inaugurated in Lane Semi-
nary, a theological school at Walnut Hills, near the
city, which Mr. Shipherd saw at once might be
brought into connection with the Oberlin enterprise.
Of this movement there was no general knowledge
at Oberlin, and that Mr. Shipherd had heard of it
cannot be ascertained. The era of newspapers, rail-
roads, and telegraphs had not yet come. The facts
were these : Lane Seminary had been in existence
two or three years, and had collected a class of stu-
dents of unusual ability and energy. Many of these
were from Oneida Institute, a school which enjoyed a
few years of vigorous life in Central New York. They
were manual-labor students, energetic and self-rely-
ing. As an indication of their spirit, it may be stated
that, in going from Oneida to Lane, some of them
went down the Alleghany and Ohio as hands on flat-
boats, and pocketed a handsome purse to begin their
studies upon at Cincinnati. Among these Oneida
students was Theodore D. Weld, a young man of
surpassing eloquence and logical power, and of a
personal influence even more fascinating than his
eloquence. Besides these Oneida students, there
were others at Lane, prominent actors in the move-
ment, some of them, as James A. Thome and Wil-
liam T. Allan, sons of slaveholders, and linked to
slavery in all their worldly interests. The whole
number of students there at the time was above one
hundred. Many of these were not theological stu-
dents, but were connected with a literary department

52 OBERLIN.

in preparation for theology, under the charge of
Professor Morgan. The theological Professors were
Dr. Lyman Beecher, Professor Stowe, and another
gentleman unknown to fame.

About this time (as early at least as 1833) the
quiet of Boston and New York, and some other
Eastern cities, had been disturbed by the startling
utterances of Wm. Lloyd Garrison and his Liberator.
He had taken issue with the Colonization Society,
and called on all honest men to stand aloof from it,
as false in principle and pernicious in its influence.
He enforced the duty of immediate and uncondi-
tional emancipation, as the only right and safe course.
" Slavery is a sin, and ought to be immediately aban-
doned," was in those days the burden of his proph-
ecy. Men of strong anti-slavery feeling were at
once brought over by his facts and his logic. Weld,
too, in the quiet of Lane Seminary, was moved, and
others with him. The students requested of the
Faculty the use of the public room occupied as a
chapel for the discussion of slavery. The Faculty
recommended quiet — rather discountenanced the
discussion, but did not prohibit it. The students
gathered in the chapel, and for eighteen successive
evenings continued their debate. At the outset
there was great diversity of sentiment, but in the
end the antislavery view prevailed almost unani-
mously. We may well suppose that the discussion
would be earnest and thorough, for there were men
there whose course for life was to turn upon the re-
sult. It was not like an ordinary discussion in a lit-
erary society, where the main interest lies in the

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 53

debate itself. Some of the young men well knew
that the position they took might alienate friends,
and prevent for many years, perhaps forever, a re-
turn to the homes of their youth. Yet even these
were convinced, and took their stand against slavery
at the sacrifice of friends and home.

As a result of the anti-slavery movement in the
Seminary, the young men were stirred up to do
something for the colored people in the city. They
gathered them in Sabbath-schools, and established
day-schools among them, and made use of all the
means at hand to elevate and advance them. Some
of the ladies of the city aided in the establishment
and superintendence of the schools. The efforts were
not limited to the colored people. Communications
were sent to the religious journals, which elicited
spirited discussions that attracted the attention of
the city generally. Movements like these disturbed
the quiet of the trustees of the Seminary, some of
whom were wholly men of commerce, and under-
stood better the pork market than the management
of a literary institution. Others sympathized in the
general apprehension of evil from the anti-slavery
excitement.

The summer vacation of twelve weeks came on,
and Professors Beecher and Stowe and Morgan had
left for the East. The students, too, were mainly
scattered. The trustees held a meeting at this
juncture, and passed a law, without any consultation
with the Faculty, except the single member who re-
mained, prohibiting the discussion of slavery among
the students, both in public and in private. They

54 OBERLIN.

were not to be allowed to communicate with each
other on the subject, even at the table in the Semi-
nary commons. At the same time the trustees
dispatched a message to Professor Morgan, in New
York, that his services were no longer required.
No reason was assigned him for so abrupt a termina-
tion of his relations. Perhaps they already appre-
hended, what they soon realized, that his occupation
was gone. But in the Seminary it was well under-
stood that he was sacrificed on account of his sym-
pathy with the anti-slavery movement. The other
professors returned to swallow, as best they could,
the bitter pill which had been prescribed for them.
The students returned to enter their protest against
the oppressive gag law of the trustees, and to ask
dismissions from the institution. Four fifths of them
left in a body, and Lane Seminary for many years
did not recover from the blow.

The protesting students, upon the invitation of
James Ludlow, a gentleman of property who resided
a few miles from the city, took possession of a
building which he provided for them ; and for five
months they continued their studies together, with
such instruction as they could afford each other, and
a course of lectures on physiology given them
by Dr. Bailey, afterwards editor of the National
Era. Arthur Tappan, of New York, sent them an
offer of S5000 for a building, and the promise of a
professorship, if they would establish a school under
anti-slavery principles and influences. Mr. Mahan,
one of the trustees of Lane Seminary, had protested
earnestly against the action which had been taken,

The accession from lane seminary. 55

and had resigned his place when he saw that the
majority would pass and sustain the odious law pro-
hibiting the discussion of slavery. He was in sym-
pathy with the protesting students, and between
him and Mr. Shipherd the plan was devised of add-
ing at once a Theological Department to Oberlin,
and bringing on the seceding students from Lane to
constitute the first theological classes. Mr. Ship-
herd's anti-slavery zeal was quickened by contact
with the exciting influences there; and under date
of December 15, 1834, he writes to the trustees at
Oberlin, urging the appointment of Rev. Asa Mahan
as President, and Rev. John Morgan, Professor of
Mathematics. He also writes : " I desire you, at the
first meeting of the trustees, to secure the passage
of the following resolution, to wit : ' Resolved, That
students shall be received into this Institution irre-
spective of color.' This should be passed because it
is a right principle, and God will bless us in doing
right. Also because thus doing right we gain the
confidence of benevolent and able men, who prob-
ably will furnish us some thousands. Moreover,
Bros. Mahan and Morgan will not accept our invita-
tion unless this principle rule. Indeed, if our Board
would violate right so as to reject youth of talent
and piety because they were black, I should have no
heart to labor for the upbuilding of our Seminary,
believing that the curse of God would come upon us,
as it has upon Lane Seminary, for its unchristian
abuse of the poor slave."

This letter was in care of the acting Secretary at
Oberlin, and of course was communicated to the

56 0 BERLIN.

officers and teachers on the ground. The idea of
receiving colored students was a new one, and the
people of Oberlin were not prepared to embrace it
at once. They knew no precedents in its favor. No
such thing, so far as they knew, had been heard of
in the land, or in any other land. There was earnest
discussion and intense excitement. It was believed
by many that the place would be at once over-
whelmed with colored students, and the mischiefs
that would follow were frightful in the extreme.
Men who afterwards stood manfully in the anti-
slavery ranks, when the battle was hottest, and
whose lives had shown that they could face duty in
its most forbidding aspects, were alarmed in view of
the unknown and undefined evil which threatened.
Young ladies who had come from New England to
the school in the wilderness — young ladies of un-
questioned refinement and goodness — declared that
if colored students were admitted to equal privileges
in the Institution they would return to their homes,
if they had to " wade Lake Erie" to accomplish it.
These same young ladies afterward showed their New
England spirit, not in wading Lake Erie, but in stem-
ming a torrent of abuse and reproach, which they en-
countered in their fearless advocacy of the cause of
the oppressed. The excitement here was intense,
and was not at all allayed by an arrangement on the
part of the trustees to hold their session in Elyria,
in the hope of finding a calmer atmosphere, more
congenial to deliberation. This session was held at
the Temperance House in Elyria, on the 1st of
January, 1835. A petition was presented to the

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 57

Board, signed by the principal colonists, and by
several students who remained during the vacation.
It reads as follows :

To the Honorable Board of Trustees of the Oberlin Collegiate Insti-
tute assembled at Elyria:
Whereas, there has been, and is now, among the colonists and
students of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute a great excitement in
their minds in consequence of a resolution of Brother J. J. Ship-
herd, to be laid before the Board, respecting the admission of
people of color into the Institution, and also of the Board's meet-
ing at Elyria: now, your petitioners, feeling a deep interest in the
Oberlin Collegiate Institute, and feeling that every measure pos-
sible should be taken to quell the alarm, that there shall not be a
root of bitterness springing up to cause a division of interest and
feeling (for a house divided against itself cannot stand); therefore,
your petitioners respectfully request that your honorable body will
meet at Oberlin, that your deliberations may be heard and known
on the great and important questions in contemplation. We feel
for our black brethren — we feel to want your counsels and instruc-
tions; we want to know what is duty, and, God assisting us, we
will lay aside every prejudice, and do as we shall be led to
believe that God would have us to do.

The trustees were in a state of doubt and per-
plexity, corresponding with the condition of the
petitioners as here presented. Their action was
conservative and non-committal. The record reads
as follows :

Whereas, information has been received from Rev. J. J. Ship-
herd, expressing a wish that students may be received into this
Institution irrespective of color; therefore, resolved, that this
Board do not feel prepared, till they have more definite informa-
tion on the subject, to give a pledge respecting the course they
will pursue in regard to the education of the people of color, wish-
ing that this Institution should be on the same ground, in respect
to the admission of students, with other similar institutions of our
land.

58 o Berlin:

At the same session of the trustees President
Mahan and Professor Morgan were appointed, ac-
cording to the request of Mr. Shipherd, although the
platform on which they had placed themselves was
not adopted.

The report of the failure of the trustees to take
the action he desired, reached Mr. Shipherd at New
York, whither he had gone, in company with Mr.
Mahan, to confer with Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
and other antislavery men of the city, in reference to
the proposal to bring to Oberlin the students who
had left Lane Seminary, establish a theological de-
partment, and place the institution upon a distinc-
tively antislavery basis. He was grieved, but not
cast down. He wrote again to the Trustees, and
especially sent a pastoral epistle to the people of
Oberlin overflowing with faithful love to all, review-
ing the way in which the Lord had led them, exhort-
ing them to patient continuance in well-doing, and
warning them against yielding to a worldly spirit
and worldly principles. At length he reaches the
matter which chiefly burdens his heart, and con-
tinues as follows :

"My fears are excited by your recent expressions
of unwillingness to have youth of color educated in
our Institute. Those expressions were a grief to
me, such as I have rarely suffered. Although I
knew that with some of you the doctrine of expedi-
ency was against the immediate abolition of slavery,
because the slaves are. not qualified for freedom, I
supposed you thought it expedient and duty to
elevate and educate them as fast as possible ; that,

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. $9

therefore, you would concur in receiving those of
promising talent and piety into our institution. So
confident was I that this would be the prevailing
sentiment of Oberlin, in the colony and institution,
that about a year ago I informed eastern inquirers
that we received students according to character,
irrespective of color. And, beloved, whatever the
expediency or prejudice of some may say, does not
duty require this? Most certainly; for, I. They are
needed as ministers, missionaries, and teachers for
the land of their fathers, and for their untaught,
injured, perishing brethren of our country. 2. Their
education seems highly essential, if not indispensa-
ble, to the emancipation and salvation of their col-
ored brethren. 3. They will be elevated far more
rapidly if taught with whites, hitherto far more
favored, than if educated separately. 4. The ex-
tremity of their wrongs at the white man's hand
requires that the best possible means be employed,
and without delay, for their elevation. 5. They can
nowhere enjoy needed education unless admitted to
our institution, or others established for whites.
6. God made them of one blood with us ; they are
our fellows. 7. They are our neighbors, and whatso-
ever we would they should do unto us, we must do
unto them, or become guilty before God. Suppose,
beloved, your color were to become black, what
would you claim, in this respect, to be your due as
neighbors? 8. Those we propose to receive are the
' little ones' of Christ. We must take heed how we
offend one of these little ones. 9. The objection to
associating with them for the purpose of doing them

60 OBERLW.

good, is like the objection of the Pharisees against
our Saviour's eating and drinking with publicans
and sinners. 10. Intermarriage with the whites is
not asked, and need not be feared. II. None of
you will be compelled to receive them into your
families, unless, like Christ, the love of your neigh-
bor compels you to. 12. Those who desire to re-
ceive and educate them have the same right to do it
that Christ had to eat with publicans and sinners.
13. Colored youth have been educated at other in-
stitutions for whites. 14. They will doubtless be
received to all such institutions by and by ; and why
should beloved Oberlin wait to do justice and show
mercy till all others have done it? Why hesitate
to lead in the cause of humanity and of God? 15.
Colored youth cannot be rejected through fear that
God will be dishonored if they are received. 16. How-
ever it may be with you, brethren, I know that it
was only the pride of my wicked heart that caused
me to reject them while I did. 17. If we refuse to
deliver our brother, now drawn unto death, I cannot
hope that God will smile upon us. 18. The men
and money which would make our institution most
useful cannot be obtained if we reject our colored
brother. Eight professorships and ten thousand
dollars are subscribed, upon condition that Rev.
C. G. Finney become Professor of Theology in our
Institute; and he will not, unless the youth of color
are received. Nor will President Mahan nor Pro-
fessor Morgan serve unless this condition is complied
with ; and they all are the men we need, irrespective
of their antislavery sentiments. 19. If you suffer

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 6 1

expediency and prejudice to pervert justice in this
case you will in another. 20. Such is my conviction
of duty in the case, that I cannot labor for the en-
largement of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute if our
brethren in Jesus Christ must be rejected because
they differ from us in color. You know, dear breth-
ren and sisters, that it would be hard for me to leave
that institution, which I planted in much fasting and
prayer and tribulation, sustained for a time by only
one brother, and then for months by only two breth-
ren, and for which I have prayed without ceasing,
laboring night and day, and watering it with my
sweat and my tears. You know it would be hard
to part with my dear associates in these labors.
And as I have you as a people in my heart to live
and die with you, you know, beloved, that it would
be heart-breaking to leave you for another field of
labor ; but I have pondered the subject well, with
prayer, and believe that if the injured brother of
color, and consequently brothers Finney, Mahan,
and Morgan, with eight professorships and ten thou-
sand dollars, must be rejected, I must join them;
because by so doing I can labor more effectually for
a lost world and the glory of God — and believe me,
dear brethren and sisters, for this reason only.

" The agitation produced by my request, forwarded
to the trustees some weeks since, was unexpected.
I was sorry that it occurred, but happy that you
fasted and prayed it down. I trust that season has
prepared the minds of all who devoutly observed it
for this communication, which I would have sup-
pressed till my return had I not been under the

62 OBERLIN.

necessity of communicating the same to the trustees
for immediate decision ; because our professors and
funds are all suspended upon that decision, and
myself also. May God of His infinite mercy grant
that in this and all things right we may be ' perfectly
joined together in one mind.' "

The trustees and the colonists to whom these
appeals of Mr. Shipherd were addressed, were earnest
Christian men and women. All their instincts and
convictions were opposed to slavery, but they had
given little consideration to their own practical re-
lations to the subject. Slavery they regarded as a
great evil — a curse ; but the idea that they had any-
thing to do about it, had not entered their minds.
The question of slavery had been discussed the sum-
mer previous in the " Oberlin Lyceum," which em-
braced both students and colonists, when it appeared
that the entire community, except Mr. Shipherd and
two or three students, were " Colonizationists." The
prevailing sentiment was that it would never do to
"let the slaves loose among us" — that the free col-
ored people should be " returned to Africa" as soon
as possible, and the slaves gradually made free, and
sent after them. The Oberlin covenant contained
no allusion to slavery. These good people would
not have hesitated a moment to go as missionaries
to Africa, if such a duty had been made clear to
them ; but all their social prepossessions, not to say
prejudices, were against the idea of a mingling of
the two races in society here. It required time and
consideration to make the thought acceptable. Even
Mr. Stewart, stern reformer that he was, trained in

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 63

missionary service among the Choctaws, ready for
anything that came as duty, however great the sac-
rifice required, was not prepared to take the step
proposed by Mr. Shipherd, and, as a member of the
Board of Trustees, cast his vote against it to the last.
It was, however, simply a question of time with him.
His mind naturally moved slowly, but at length he
took his position with the foremost of the Abo-
litionists.

According to Mr. Shipherd's request, another
meeting of the trustees was held at Oberlin, Feb. 9,
at the house of Mr. Shipherd, which had been
erected, the previous summer, on the north side of
the College Square. Many of the good people had
by this time become deeply interested in favor of
the movement, and the results of this meeting were
looked for with intense interest. Rev. John Keep,
then of Ohio City [Cleveland, west side], was at
the time president of the Board, having been elected
the previous autumn, upon the resignation of Judge
Brown.

The trustees convened in the morning, nine mem-
bers being present, and the discussion was warm and
long. Mrs. Shipherd was occupied with her house-
hold duties, but in her anxiety she often passed the
door, which was ajar, and at length stood before it.
Father Keep comprehended the case, and stepped
out to inform her that the result of the deliberation
was very doubtful. He greatly feared that the op-
position would prevail. Mrs. Shipherd dropped her
work at once, gathered her praying sisters in the
neighborhood, and spent the time with them in

64 OBERLIN.

prayer until the decision was announced. When the
question was finally taken, the division of the Board
was equal, and Father Keep, as the presiding officer,
gave the casting vote in favor of the admission of
colored students. The resolution which at length
passed was not simple and direct, like the one pro-
posed originally by Mr. Shipherd, but it seems the
expression of timid men who were afraid to say pre-
cisely what they meant. It is as follows :

Whereas, there does exist in our country an excitement in
respect to our colored population, and fears are entertained that
on the one hand they will be left unprovided for as to the means
of a proper education, and on the other that they will in unsuit-
able numbers be introduced into our schools, and thus in effect
forced into the society of the whites, and the state of public senti-
ment is such as to require from the Board some definite expression
on the subject; therefore, resolved, that the education of the peo-
ple of color is a matter of great interest, and should be encouraged
and sustained in this institution.

The logic of the resolution is not very luminous,
nor is the conclusion entirely unambiguous, but the
effect was decisive. It determined the policy of the
institution on the question of slavery, and no other
action has been needed on the subject from that day
to this. It was a word of invitation and welcome to
the colored man, as opposed to the spirit of exclu-
sion which was then dominant in the land. That
this decision was regarded as involving grave conse-
quences, is manifest from the intense excitement
which existed here at the time. There were no col-
ored students at the door seeking admittance. In-
deed there was but one colored person at the time
resident in the county; but they were very generally

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 65

expected as the result of this decision ; and when
at length a solitary colored man was seen entering
the settlement, a little boy, the son of one of the
trustees, ran to the house, calling out, " They're
coming, father — they're coming !"

At the same meeting of the trustees Rev. Charles
G. Finney, of New York City, was appointed Pro-
fessor of Theology. He was then pastor of the Con-
gregational Church worshipping in the Chatham
Street Chapel, formerly a theatre, and about to enter
the Broadway Tabernacle, which was building for its
reception. The Tappans and other prominent anti-
slavery men were members of this church. They
had already become interested in the antislavery
movement in Lane Seminary, and were ready to
respond to the proposal of Messrs. Shipherd and
Mahan that Mr. Finney should become Professor of
Theology at Oberlin, and thus a refuge should be
afforded for the fugitives from Lane.

Arthur Tappan himself pledged a contribution of
ten thousand dollars to erect a building intended
primarily for the Theological Department, and en-
gaged to secure a loan of ten thousand more for
other necessary buildings and improvements. Sev-
eral other gentlemen united with the Tappans in
what was called " The Oberlin Professorship Associ-
ation," engaging to pay quarterly the interest on
eighty thousand dollars, sufficient for the salaries of
eight professors, at six hundred dollars each. It was
intended finally to pay the principal, and thus se-
cure the permanent endowment of the institution.
This was in the beginning of 1835, when all business

66 OBERLIN.

operations seemed prosperous, and the gentlemen
forming the association were abundantly able to do
what they proposed. On this foundation, and on
the ground of the antislavery attitude of the college
as determined by the final action of the trustees,
Messrs. Mahan, Finney, and Morgan accepted their
appointments, and arranged to come to Oberlin.
Professor Morgan, however, was invited to the
Chair of New Testament Literature and Exegesis,
instead of that of Mathematics and Natural Philoso-
phy, as at first proposed. These men were then in
the prime of their manhood — Professor Finney
forty-two years of age, President Mahan thirty-five,
and Professor Morgan thirty-two. Professor Finney
was born in Connecticut, removed early to Central
New York, was trained for the profession of law,
and entered the ministry after brief study with his
pastor, Rev. George W. Gale. President Mahan was
born in Western New York, pursued study at Ham-
ilton College to the end of the junior year, and
took his theological course at Andover. Professor
Morgan was brought to this country from Ireland, at
the age of eleven, was brought up in Philadelphia and
New York, prepared for college at Stockbridge, Mass.,
and graduated at Williams. His theological studies
were pursued privately in New York. Thus Oberlin
experienced a sudden enlargement and took a new
departure.

President Mahan came to Oberlin about the first
of May, followed a month later by his family and a
large number of the students from Lane. For the
president's family, the first log house erected here

/", §'-H

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 6?

was vacated and made ready, and this house they oc-
cupied several months, until the " President's House,"
at the south-west corner of the square, could be built.
For the students who came from Lane, special pro-
vision was made. A building was extemporized,
called " Cincinnati Hall." It was one story high,
one hundred and forty-four feet long, and twenty-
four feet wide. Its sides and partitions and ceilings
and floors were of beech boards fresh from the mill.
On the outside it was battened with " slabs" retain-
ing the bark of the original tree, which gave the
building a decidedly rustic aspect. One end of the
" Hall " was fitted up as kitchen and dining-room,
and the remainder was divided into rooms twelve
feet square, with a single window to each, and a door
opening out upon the forest. This structure was
situated a little west of the site of the " Old Labora-
tory," its west side corresponding with what is now
the east side of Professor Street. This was then the
border of the forest toward the west. Two students
were assigned to each room. Oberlin strained a
point to give the new-comers a reception and ac-
commodations worthy of their fame. The enthusi-
asm of the new enterprise lightened hardships and
made the rough places smooth. All were satisfied.
The number of students that came was about
thirty — not all theological students. Several were
from the literary course at Lane, in preparation for
theology, and entered a similar course here. A few
of those who had been most prominent in the move-
ment at Lane, as Theodore D. Weld and Henry B.
Stanton, did not come to Oberlin to remain, but

68 OBERLIN'.

were drawn at once into public antislavery labors in
the country, and only dropped in at Oberlin from
time to time as their work permitted. Among those
who came and helped to make up a senior theologi-
cal class were such men as Wm. T. Allan, of Hunts-
ville, Ala.; John W. Alvord, more recently connected
with the Freedman's Bureau ; George Clark, known
in the country for many years as an evangelist; Se-
reno W. Streeter, a well-known pastor in Ohio and
Michigan ; James A. Thome, of Augusta, Ky., pro-
fessor at Oberlin, and afterwards pastor in Cleveland ;
George Whipple, twelve years professor at Oberlin,
and for many years afterwards Secretary of the
American Missionary Association ; and others, four-
teen in all — such a class as any seminary might be
proud of.

The effect of this accession upon the institution
and the place was, of course, decided and manifest.
The school was at once transformed from a Collegi-
ate Institute — as it had been modestly called — to a
University, embracing the same departments as at
present, with students in every stage of advance-
ment. Hence the mistake has often been made
abroad, of attributing the origin of Oberlin to the
explosion at Lane Seminary. The Collegiate De-
partment received considerable accessions, about the
same time, from Western Reserve College, the trus-
tees of which had been exercised, somewhat after the
manner of the trustees of Lane, by the antislavery
zeal of professors and students. Thus Oberlin in-
curred odium, not only by its antislavery position,
but by becoming an asylum for discontented stu-

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 69

dents. If these students had been such as could
well be spared by the schools from which they came,
the case would have been far different ; but the
" glorious good fellows"of Lane, as Dr. Beecher called
them, were well matched in the earnest and thorough-
going young men from Hudson.

In June Professors Finney and Morgan came, and
soon entered upon their work. The buildings pro-
vided for by the gift and loan of Arthur Tappan,
were commenced and pushed rapidly forward.
These were two dwelling-houses of brick, each two
stories in height, one for President Mahan and the
other for Professor Finney ; and Tappan Hall, a col-
lege building of brick, four stories high, with four
lecture rooms on the first floor, and dormitories
above, intended first for the Theological Depart-
ment, as far as required, and then for the general
uses of the college. The colonists, though greatly
pressed with the expense of building their own
homes, and bringing their farms into cultivation, sub-
scribed twenty-five hundred dollars to be applied in
the erection of another college building, the lower
story of which should be used jointly, by the college
as a chapel, and by the church for its services. This
subscription covered about half the cost of the build-
ing, and was made with the provision that the use
by the church should be temporary, and that the
claim should finally be transferred to the college.
This building was three stories in height, the second
and third stories furnishing dormitories for young
men. In consideration of the subscription by the
people, the building was called Colonial Hall. The

yo OBERLW.

frame was erected and the building inclosed before
winter.

Meanwhile the congregation had outgrown the
little chapel used the preceding year, and the dining-
room of the new boarding-house, not yet occupied,
was put in order every Saturday for the Sabbath
services. In this room Mr. Finney did his first preach,
ing in Oberlin, President Mahan usually taking the
morning service, and Mr. Finney the afternoon. Both
sermons were long — never less than an hour, often an
hour and a half ; but the congregation never seemed
weary, and probably no one in the entire community,
at that time, ever willingly stayed away. It was
such preaching as the young people who heard it
could never forget.

When Colonial Hall was erected and had received
its roof and siding, loose boards were laid on the
timbers and the service was held there, the whole
interior being open to the roof, and the timbers of
the successive stories being supported by studs,
held in position simply by the pressure from above.
At the first gathering in this building the service had
just begun when the brick supports under the floor
were crushed, and the props above, loosened by the
sinking of the floor, fell one after another into the
midst of the people. No one was injured, but there
was considerable consternation, which Mr. Finney
quieted by assuring the people that they could not
possibly fall farther than the ground ; and that if
sinners were not in danger of falling farther than
the ground, he would never preach another sermon.
He then went on with a pungent and powerful dis-

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. ?I

course from the text, " He that turneth away his ear
from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abom-
ination."

This rapid enlargement, involving the coming in
of new men of commanding influence and new ideas,
was not effected without some perturbations. With-
in a week of the arrival of President Mahan, the in-
formation was spread abroad, by some student who
had " interviewed " him, that he was opposed to the
study of the " heathen classics." He was at once
invited by some committee to give a lecture upon
the subject before the Oberlin Lyceum. Without
due consideration, as he afterward used to admit, he
consented, and stated freely and strongly, as was his
wont, his views, not in opposition to the study of
Latin and Greek, but of the classic authors com-
monly used in the college course, and indeed in op-
position to so large an expenditure of time upon
these studies. He was one of the earliest advocates
of "the new education." Mr. Waldo, who was Pro-
fessor of Languages, and who until this time had been
principal of the school, felt called upon to defend
the regular course, and gave notice that the next
day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, he would reply
to the views of President Mahan. The discussion
thus opened continued several days, engaging the
attention of the entire community. One evening,
after an argument by the president, a student, who
had never taken kindly to linguistic studies, entered
the room of a fellow-student with his Virgil in his
hand, and challenged him to join him in burning
the obnoxious books. The student thus challenged

72 OBERLIN.

took up an old volume of Virgil, careful to keep a
better one safe, and together they went out in front
of the building and lighted the leaves. A score or
more of students dropped into the company, some
of them bringing books to add to the illumination ;
and for half an hour they tossed them through the
air like fire-balls. Some of the young men perhaps
regarded it as a serious business, but to the majority
it was mere sport. The young men who burnt the
books prepared their lessons in Virgil for the next
day, as usual. The boyish freak was widely published
through the country as " The burning of the Classics
at Oberlin," and was accepted very generally, not
unnaturally, as a declaration that such studies were
to be repudiated. No such impression prevailed at
Oberlin, and no such result followed. The course of
study remained unchanged, essentially the accepted
American college course. But the discussion and
the result disturbed Mr. Waldo's mind. He appre-
hended that he should not be able to realize at Ober-
lin his views of education, and at the next meeting
of the trustees he tendered his resignation. Rev.
Henry Cowlcs, a native of Connecticut, and an hon-
ored graduate of Yale, then pastor at Austinburg,
was appointed to the vacancy, and entered upon the
work in the autumn of this year.

One result of the discussion upon classical study
was to awaken a temporary interest in the study of
the Hebrew language, which it was proposed to sub-
stitute for a portion of the Latin of the course. To
meet this demand, Prof. J. Seixas, a Jew, a teacher
of Hebrew, from New York City, was employed the

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 73

latter half of the year, to give the students an intro-
duction to this language. He was an enthusiastic
and successful teacher, and stirred up such an inter-
est that his classes numbered, at one time, a hundred
and twenty-seven pupils. This interest soon sub-
sided, and the study of Hebrew was begun, at first
in the last term of the junior year, then in the first
term of the senior year, and finally was limited to the
theological course.

The commencement this year was held in July,
under the " Big Tent" which had been sent on from
New York by Professor Finney's friends, to furnish
him the means of holding protracted meetings
through the region, in places where no suitable house
for such meetings could be found. This tent was
for some years a conspicuous feature of the Oberlin
Commencement, and of other large gatherings. It
was a circular tent, a hundred feet in diameter — suf-
ficient when closely seated to shelter three thousand
persons. Its first spreading on the college grounds
was an occasion of much interest. It was on Satur-
day afternoon, and the young men of the college all
entered into the work. The work, after some mis-
adjustments, was successfully accomplished, and the
long blue streamer floated out on the breeze, bearing
the millennial motto, in large white letters, " Holi-
ness to the Lord." On Sabbath afternoon, at five
o'clock, the people gathered in the tent for a dedica-
tion service. Professor Finney was offering the ded-
icatory prayer, and asking that the tent might serve
the purposes intended, and might be protected from
the winds of heaven, when a sudden gale struck the

74 OBERLIN.

canvas on the west side ; stakes yielded and chains
broke, and the whole collapsed. The people were
not seriously disturbed by the unpropitious omen.
They strengthened the stakes and doubled the
chains, and the Commencement was held in the
tent.

There was no class to graduate, as those from
Lane who composed the senior theological class had
determined, on account of interruption of their stu-
dies, in changing from Lane to Oberlin, to take an
additional year. The principal exercises were in-
augural addresses from President Mahan and Profes-
sors Fin'ney and Morgan.

The Annual Catalogue for this year, 1835, pub-
lished after Commencement, presents the institution
as fully organized in all its departments, with a total
attendance of two hundred and seventy-seven stu-
dents, thirty-five in the theological classes, thirty-eight
in the college classes, and two hundred and four pre-
paratory students. These were from all parts of the
Northern States, with a few from the South — young
men and women of mature age and earnest charac-
ter, a large majority professed Christians, prepar-
ing for service in the different spheres of Christian
labor.

A single colored student, James Bradley, once a
slave, had come from Cincinnati, following the stu-
dents from Lane, with whom he had become ac-
quainted. All the resistance to the reception of col-
ored students, which had been exhibited less than a
year before, had disappeared. All seemed to have
forgotten that they could have cherished such feel-

TENT.

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. ?$

ings, and the colored brother was made perfectly at
home.

A few weeks before the close of the fall term
Theodore D. Weld came to the place, and gave a
series of more than twenty lectures on slavery, its
nature and relations and bearings, personal, social,
political, and moral: lectures of marvellous power, all
charged with facts, with logic, and with fervid elo-
quence. To listen to such an exhibition of the sys-
tem of slavery, was an experience to be remembered
for a lifetime. It is doubtful whether any community
was ever more profoundly moved by the eloquence
of a single man. From first to last, through the even-
ings of three full weeks, the whole body of citizens
and students hung upon his lips. Studies naturally
suffered some interruption, but the opportunity was
itself an education. Oberlin was abolitionized in
every thought and feeling and purpose, and has been
working out those convictions during the fifty years
that have since elapsed.

During the following winter vacation a score or
more of the students, equipped for the conflict by
this course of training, went out as lecturers through
Ohio and portions of Pennsylvania, under the aus-
pices of the American Antislavery Society. Their
experiences were sufficiently startling to meet all the
requirements of an interesting campaign. They
found bitter enemies and devoted friends, and en-
countered mobs which were sometimes amusing and
sometimes terrific; and thus the abolitionism was
diffused. The Western Reserve became, under these
and other influences, a stronghold of antislavery

76 OBERLIN.

sentiment and action ; and when at length the ques-
tion of the relations of the government to slavery
became the absorbing one in politics, the Western
Reserve determined the position of the State of
Ohio.

There were, during this year, hundreds of appli-
cants for admission to the school who could not be
received. The difficulty was to provide rooms and
facilities for manual labor to the many who came.
The prospect seemed to be that the only limit to the
influx of students would be the necessity of provid-
ing for them room and work ; but it was found that
the labor could not be made immediately produc-
tive on the land not yet subdued, the roots of the
original forest still alive in the ground. Hence dur-
ing the winter the plan was matured of organizing
subsidiary schools at convenient points, to provide
for the overflow from Oberlin ; and with the open-
ing of the spring, in 1836, such schools were opened :
one at Sheffield, about fifteen miles from Oberlin,
and another at Abbeyville, in Medina County. The
Grand River Institute at Austinburg was estab-
lished about this time, and received a colony from
Oberlin, and another colony was sent to the Elyria
High School, already in existence. The school at
Sheffield was provided for by Mr. Robbins Burrell,
who devoted his fine farm and house to the enter-
prise, and took personal charge of its material and
financial interests. The colonies sent to these
schools were made up of volunteers. A popular
teacher was selected, and his influence drew some,
and these drew others. Lorenzo D. Butts, a Lane

THE ACCESSION FROM LANE SEMINARY. 77

Seminary student, was placed in charge at Sheffield,
and Amos Dresser, another student from Lane, took
charge at Abbeyville. The Grand River Institute
became a permanency, because it had a field and
constituency of its own. The schools at Sheffield
and Abbeyville had scarcely more than a year of life ;
the impulse that originated them was soon ex-
hausted, and the pupils drifted back to the centre.

A single church in Walton, N. Y., to provide for
its young men who wished to come to Oberlin, built
a hall of its own, called Walton Hall, on ground fur-
nished by the college — a frame building of two sto-
ries, with twelve rooms for two students each.
Individual students put up houses of their own on
grounds leased from the college, which they occu-
pied in company with some of their fellow-students —
a privilege limited to young men. From the begin-
ning the principle was adopted that young women,
not provided for in the Ladies' Hall, must find
homes in responsible families. Now and then a stu-
dent, of somewhat monastic tastes and simple habits,
would construct for himself a cabin in the woods ;
but this manner of life was never encouraged : the
idea was inculcated that the culture arising from con-
tact with fellow-students, in pleasant social relations,
was an essential part of education.

Thus Oberlin was first established and then en-
larged, and the enlargement was so conspicuous a
fact that it has sometimes been mistaken for its ori-
gin. Professor Finney and the men from Lane
joined a school already in existence, and numbering
more than a hundred pupils.

CHAPTER IV.

THE EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE.

The Oberlin enterprise, in its very conception, was
active and aggressive ; it was the outgrowth of the
great revival movement of 1830-31-32. It was no
part of the plan of the founders to establish a com-
munity which should live within itself and for itself;
to separate a group of Christian families and a col-
lection of young people from the rest of the world
for the sake of realizing certain ideas of the Chris-
tian life, with no thought beyond. The purpose was
to concentrate Christian forces, and train Christian
character, for effective operation upon the world with-
out. To extend the influences of the Gospel through-
out the " Mississippi Valley" was the constant idea
in the minds of those who laid the foundations.

The revivals of those early years were connected
with the presentation of the New School theology.
Personal responsibility and immediate duty, on the
part of saints and sinners, was the watchword. The
world was in darkness, and those who had the Gos-
pel were under solemn and pressing obligation to
send abroad the light. These were the original
ideas in the minds of Messrs. Shipherd and Stewart,
and the early families which gathered in the wilder-
ness. These ideas were strengthened and intensified

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 7Q

by the accession of Mr. Finney and the men who
came in connection with him in 1835. Mr. Finney
had for years stood in the forefront of the great re-
vival movement, and had but recently settled down
in New York City as pastor of an aggressive, active
church ; from this point as a centre he hoped to
move upon the country at large. The New York
Evangelist had published his revival lectures deliv-
ered in this pulpit, and continued to publish his ser-
mons ; the country at large had, in a sense, become
his field of labor. When he came to Oberlin, it was
not simply with the thought of settling down in
quiet, to give a class of theological students his New
School views and the benefits of his experience as
an evangelist : this he intended to do ; but he hoped
to find at Oberlin a new centre, from which he might
operate more effectively upon the country and the
world. The record of the action of the trustees in
his appointment, discloses his purpose in this respect.
It includes the following proviso : " Resolved, that
with the view of the increased influence of Mr. Fin-
ney in the church at large, he have liberty to be ab-
sent four or five months of each year, when, on con-
sulting with the Faculty, and with them making the
arrangement so as to secure the best interests of the
institution, he shall deem it to be his duty."

The " Big Tent" was another indication of his
thought and purpose. It was not possible that a
man of such restless energy, with an apostle's bap-
tism upon him, should have his influence circum-
scribed by the woods that environed Oberlin ; and
he was not alone. His associates were men of simi-

80 OBERLINi

lar purpose and power, acting under the same in-
spiration. The colonists had joined the enterprise
under a kind of missionary impulse, and the stu-
dents were largely of the same spirit — young men
and women of mature age and earnest character,
expecting to find in the world some work to do.

Such a concentration of power and purpose is
rarely secured in any community ; and this power
was not quiet and dormant : it was vitalized and
energized by contact with the great questions and
movements of the day. It was not primarily or
chiefly an antislavery excitement that animated the
community: it was a " zeal for the Lord," ready to
move in any direction where a way should open, to
benefit mankind and honor God.

Such restless activity must find a field of action —
objects upon which to expend itself; and upon the
wise direction of this activity the question of a
wholesome result must turn. A calm observer, con-
templating the scene, would have been in doubt
whether to expect a conflict of forces, divisive and
self-destructive .; a union of force in some eccentric
or extravagant form of action, involving a blind
enthusiasm, or more likely a malignant fanaticism ;
or a well-considered and well-regulated work, opera-
ting beneficently at home and abroad. The first and
the second were often predicted, often affirmed to
exist ; the last was to a great extent realized. The
zeal and impulse of some was happily balanced by
the considerate conservatism of others, and all blen-
ded in a movement essentially harmonious. No one
ever attained to such authority in the community

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 8 1

that his opinion was accepted as conclusive ; all
opinions were freely discussed, and accepted or dis-
carded acccording to the apparent reason of the
case. The range of investigation was very broad,
embracing questions practical and abstract. Dietetics
and the foundation of moral obligation were discussed
with equal interest ; and every conclusion capable of
application in practical form was brought to the test
of experiment.

For a time many of these discussions gathered
about the Oberlin Covenant. That document was
supposed to contain principles by which the Christian
life should be ordered ; but when it was brought to
bear in a practical case, it was found quite as diffi-
cult to determine what the covenant prescribed, as to
settle the question on independent grounds. This
was no valid objection to the covenant ; nothing
more could properly be asked of it ; but it proved
less useful in the adjustment of practical questions
than some had hoped. Such general terms as " econo-
my and Christian self-denial," " necessary personal
and family expenses," " plain and wholesome food,"
"expensive and unwholesome fashions of dress,"
"plainness and durability in the construction of
houses, furniture, carriages, and all that appertains
to us," were found to be just as broad as the Scripture
injunction, " Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." The
whole ground of Christian life and duty was trav-
ersed, and all questions were vigorously discussed ;
but the community settled down upon the catholic
basis, of leaving to each one's personal judgment

82 0 BERLIN,

and conscience the determination of his own con-
duct. The Oberlin Covenant thus became a general
confession of the obligations of the Christian life.
More than this would have proved a hindrance in-
stead of a help. But such an interpretation of the
covenant did not set aside investigation and discuss-
ion. The Oberlin enterprise was undertaken as a
new departure, and all the questions of life and god-
liness invited to a reconsideration. One of the first
questions before the community pertained to eating
and drinking. The covenant was measurably specific
as to the use of strong drink and tobacco, and these
indulgences were generally discarded. The use of
tea and coffee was regarded as questionable, under
the covenant ; but how far it was " practicable" to
dispense with them, was never perfectly ascertained.
Simplicity of diet was at the beginning maintained
on the ground of economy. The aim of the school
was to bring; a liberal education within the reach of
all; and Mr. Stewart, the first manager of the college
boarding hall, had very positive ideas on the subject
of table economy. To diminish the cost of living
without detriment to health or vigor was his constant
aim. Mr. Finney brought with him from New York
ideas on diet which had been set forth by Dr. Mussey
of Dartmouth, Dr. Hitchcock of Amherst, and such
popular writers as Graham and Alcott. These
views were based on the question of health, and in
general involved the disuse of animal food. The
dietetic reform at Oberlin was thus placed on the
double foundation of economy and health, and was
sustained by impulses from without as well as with-

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 83

in. Students at Amherst, under the lead of Dr.
Hitchcock, were weighing out their fourteen ounces
of food a day, while students at Oberlin were ex-
perimenting on Graham bread and crust coffee.
Both experiments were short-lived, but that at Am.
herst soon passed out of thought, while that at
Oberlin was accepted as characteristic, and became
historical. The facts were that after two years Mr#
Stewart left the boarding hall, and a steward was
called from Boston, who held radical views on the
subject of a vegetarian diet ; and for two or three
years longer the students were furnished at the
Hall with " Graham" fare. They were not restricted
to this. A table was still set for those who preferred
a different diet ; and there was never any constraint
or compulsion in the case. Tea and coffee were not
introduced into the college boarding hall until 1842
— possibly a little later.

The dietetic experiment in the community, or
colony, as it was called, was similar to that in the
college. Many of the families discarded tea and
coffee, and a few adopted the vegetarian diet ; but
as the years passed on, these peculiarities disappeared,
and the present generation know of them only as
traditions of the early days. The dietetic experi-
ment was attended with vigorous discussion, and the
dogmas of vegetarianism were often publicly contro-
verted as well as supported ; and a final blow was
given to the extreme vegetarian views, as presented
by Sylvester Graham, by two young men, T. B.
Hudson and S. D. Cochran, in a public discussion
before the " Society of Inquiry."

84 oberlin:

Abstract and philosophical questions were inves-
tigated with no less interest. In the year 1839 tne
foundation of moral obligation was discussed in the
college chapel, by President Mahan and Prof. J. P.
Cowles of the Theological Department, now of Ips-
wich, Mass. Professor Finney presided, and a large
audience of students and citizens was in attendance.
President Mahan maintained the popular view, of an
intuitive principle of right as ultimate in thought, out
of which all obligation springs, and to which all ques-
tions of duty must be finally referred — the rational
faculty determining, more or less distinctly and di-
rectly, the Tightness or wrongness of every action.
Professor Cowles had been educated at New Haven,
and held the modified Paleyan view as presented by
Dr. Taylor. The discussion was earnest and vigor-
ous, occupying two or three hours each day, and ad-
journed from day to day through the week. As is
usual in such discussions, neither of the disputants
was able to convince the other of his error ; but Pro-
fessor Finney, who occupied the chair, and who had
not distinctly formulated his theory of obligation, was
able to combine the strong points of both theories,
and at the close of the discussion set forth his view,
afterwards elaborated in his work on Systematic
Theology as the " Benevolence theory." From Pro-
fessor Cowles he accepted the idea of happiness,
well-being, as the ultimate good, and from President
Mahan the fact that obligation is intuitively or
rationally seen and affirmed ; but this obligation is
only seen or affirmed in the presence of the good,
and rests on the perceived value of happiness, or uU

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 85

timate good, as its ground. This was the genesis of
the Oberlin philosophy of obligation, the resultant
of the utilitarian scheme, and the theory of ulti-
mate, abstract right. It may not differ in any
essential feature from the view of Edwards and
Samuel Hopkins ; but so far as Mr. Finney was con-
cerned, it was undoubtedly an original and inde-
pendent investigation.

The pronounced antislavery position of Oberlin
naturally brought here, from time to time, the
prominent apostles of Abolitionism, both such as
were in full harmony with the conservative politi-
cal and ecclesiastical attitude of the people here, and
such as seemed to themselves to have reached a bet-
ter and more advanced position. Wm. Lloyd Gar-
rison and Frederick Douglass came, at one time, to
convince us that the proper antislavery position in-
volved a withdrawal from all political action ; that
the Constitution of the United States was pro-slav-
ery and corrupt, and all who voted under it shared
in its wickedness, and that those only were bearing
a proper testimony against slavery who came out
from all political organizations, and refused to take
any part in the affairs of government. President
Mahan, as usual, led the discussion on the Oberlin
side, sustained by Professor T. B. Hudson, and per-
haps some others. The result was that Oberlin
people continued to vote, Mr. Garrison went on his
way, and Mr. Douglass, then or soon after, joined
the voting abolitionists.

Stephen Foster and his wife, Abby Kelly Foster,
came to Oberlin on a similar errand of " come-outer-

86 OBERLIN.

ism," to persuade the people that they were com-
promising their antislavery position, weakening
their testimony, and sharing in the guilt of slavery,
by maintaining any correspondence or fellowship
with the churches of the land. The continuous
chain of fellowship united the church at Oberlin
with the slaveholding churches of the South, and,
no matter by how many links, ten or ten thousand,
bound all together in one " covenant of hell." The
doctrine was not an abstract one in its bearings. It
was dividing the churches of the land and alienating
Christian men from each other. They were invited
to present their views before the people in the col-
lege chapel, but, as usual, with the provision that
half the time should be given to a presentation of
the other side. The evenings of a full week were
given to the discussion, with President Mahan in
the forefront of the battle. The atmosphere waxed
hot and lurid with the fire and smoke of the conflict,
but the sky soon cleared, and the church arrange-
ments continued undisturbed.

Rev. Charles Fitch, of Newark, N. J., came to
preach the doctrine of the immediate second coming
of Christ. He was a man of much personal mag-
netism, intensely in earnest, profoundly convinced
of the truth of his message, and called, as he felt, to
bring the better light to the good people of Oberlin.
He was welcomed to the chapel, with the inevitable
condition of an open and free discussion. He had
half the time, and President Mahan and Professors
Morgan and Henry Cowles reviewed his Scripture
interpretations, his logic, and his rhetoric. The work

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 87

was done so thoroughly that it sufficed for a genera-
tion. The people lived quietly through 1843, and
all the other periods subsequently designated by the
Adventists.

Every such question was hospitably entertained,
but was required to give a reason for its claim to at-
tention. The people had broken away from many
old ideas, and there was no such presumption
against a new doctrine that they could set it aside
without examination. This temper of mind exposed
them to the approach of every would-be reformer
who had some new theory or scheme of life to prop-
agate. He expected sympathy at Oberlin, if no-
where else ; and constant vigilance was the price of
security from imposition.

But the Oberlin idea was first Christian and evan-
gelical, and afterwards reformatory. It was not to
realize some special fancy, or to accomplish some
particular outward change, that the people came and
planted their institutions in the wilderness. Their
aims were as broad as the Gospel itself, and all pro-
posed reforms were at once tested by their bearing
upon the general Christian life and work. The pre-
dominance of this idea saved them from any wild
fanaticism. An intelligent Christian earnestness
is the best security against the extravagances of
social reform.

The situation at Oberlin was remarkably favor-
able to earnestness and unity of action, in every line
of duty and of thought. There was but a single
congregation, composed of citizens and students,
during the first twenty years and more ; and. of this

S5 OBERLIN.

congregation Mr. Finney was the pastor, preaching
once every Sabbath and often twice. In the early
days, Mr. Mahan was accustomed to preach in the
morning and Mr. Finney in the afternoon. Mr. Ma-
han was a preacher of no ordinary power.

It was natural that with such a concentration of re-
ligious forces here, with a predisposition on the part
of the people to religious activity and inquiry, the
religious life should have been always earnest and
often intense. With a powerful sermon from Presi-
dent Mahan or Professor Morgan in the morning, not
less than an hour, and an hour and a half of Mr. Fin-
ney's fervid eloquence in the afternoon, the Sabbath
was an occasion of strong impressions and "great
searchings of heart." Mr. Finney never preached but
with a definite aim and a purpose of immediate re-
sults. There were times when his object was to pre-
sent some doctrine or truth as a part of the gospel
system ; but in the presentation he addressed himself
to the audience before him with the intention of
securing their acceptance of the doctrine. Oftener
his aim was to stir up Christians to greater effort and
fidelity, or to move the thoughtless and the- worldly
to undertake a life of duty and religion. If there
was evidence of a solemn and profound impression
upon the audience, he was accustomed to call for an
open decision, on the part of those whom he particu-
larly addressed, at times asking them to rise in their
places in testimony of their purpose, or at other
times to come forward to seats that were vacated for
their occupancy. Sometimes a hundred, and even
hundreds, responded to his appeal, coming forward

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 89

and kneeling while he in prayer besought for them
light and strength.

Such Sabbaths extended their influence to the
daily thought and life, and induced a general relig-
ious activity rarely found. All the duties and pos-
sibilities of the Christian life were thoroughly con-
sidered, and outward and inward activity greatly
stimulated. It was under such a pressure that the
inquiry arose, as to the possibility of a life of full
obedience or entire consecration to the will of God.
The duty of such a life was granted by all, and the
absolute possibility of it was involved in the New
School theology, which maintained that ability was
the condition of obligation.

The first attempt at a practical application of this
principle to the Christian life was made by a few
young men in the summer of 1836. They had formed
a missionary circle, and held a weekly prayer-meet-
ing to secure a better preparation for their chosen
work. In conference upon the consecration needed
and required, they were led, one after another, to
promise the Lord, in prayer, not to grieve Him any
more by sin; and they left the meeting with the feel-
ing that they were pledged to a life of entire obedi-
ence to God, assuming that the Lord would afford
deliverance in every time of need. It was a contem-
plation of a life of entire obedience, chiefly from the
side of duty — the obligation and the possibility of it.
The step which these young men supposed they had
taken, attracted some attention in the community,
and was met with disapprobation. Mr. Finney him-
self announced in a sermon that he would creep a

go OBERLIN.

hundred miles upon his hands and knees, to see a man
who was living without sin. The young men went
quietly on their way, making no profession, in public
or private, as to their success in the life they had
undertaken.

The same season a few numbers of The Perfection-
ist, published in New Haven, were circulated in the
community, and while the doctrine they inculcated
was in general disapproved, they seemed to stimu-
late inquiry. In the autumn of the same year, the
entire community of citizens and students was pro-
foundly moved in a religious quickening, and the
chief burden of thought and of prayer was, a higher
spiritual life, a more full consecration on the part of
Christians. At one of the daily meetings a student
arose and asked what Divine help he might expect, in
his effort to live the Christian life. Did the Gospel
contain provisions and promises, of which he might
avail himself, sufficient to secure him from sin and
enable him to stand under all temptations? Presi-
dent Mahan at once answered yes, and his answer
served to fasten his own thought upon the subject,
until he seemed to enter upon a new experience and
a higher life. According to his own expression of
it, it was coming out of darkness into light. Others
were similarly wrought upon, and new experiences
were received, until the idea became prevalent that
there was a somewhat definite experience, open to
all Christians, by which they could rise to a higher
plane of living, and maintain unbroken communion
with the Saviour. This experience was variously
named " the blessing," " sanctifkation," " perfect

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE, gi

love," " Christian perfection." The theory of the
experience, so far as a theory was presented, was
that it was a passing from a state of imperfect obe-
dience to perfect obedience — perfect, not in the
sense of freedom from mistakes and involuntary im-
perfections, but in freedom from voluntary failures,
positive and present sin — a passing from partial to
entire consecration.

The view was essentially that of the Wesleyan ex-
perience of perfect love, and biographies of Wesley-
ans were eagerly sought for, in which these experi-
ences were portrayed, as of the Wesleys, Fletcher,
Carvosso, Hester Ann Rogers, as well as the experi-
ences of President and Mrs. Edwards and J. B. Tay-
lor. Mr. Finney was about leaving for his winter in
New York, but these new ideas went with him, and
gave tone to his experience and his preaching there.
Mr. Mahan's preaching was in the direction of this
experience, and many were greatly moved by it.

The question of sanctification in the present life
became very prominent, and the possibility of it was
generally accepted. Those who entered into the
special experience involved were comparatively few.
Many others sought the experience, with more or less
earnestness and anxiety. But the prevailing opinion
probably was, that while the experience was genuine
and valuable, it was not to be attained at will ; and
that true Christian wisdom dictated a life of fidelity
and duty, and the acceptance of whatever experience
should fall to one's lot. This certainly was true,
that those who in the earlier part of the movement
came into this special experience were often greatly

£2 OBERLIN.

and permanently quickened in their spiritual life, and
acquired an energy and efficiency as Christian work-
ers which had never before characterized them. To
numbers of them it proved a life-long elevation of
soul, a vision of spiritual realities that sustained
them many a year. There was, on the part of these
persons in general, no profession of sinlessness ; but
a humble acknowledgment of God's faithfulness to
His promises, a constant joy in the Saviour as a pres-
ent help in every time of need. It was inevitable
that in such a movement there would be superficial
imitations of the genuine experience — mere excite-
ment of feeling, with no permanent result in charac-
ter or life. Such cases must occur in all earnest and
effective movements. There is the substance and
the shadow, and the shadow is often the more showy.
As months and years passed on, the first impulse
of the movement seemed in a measure to exhaust
itself, and experiences became less intense. There
was time, too, to examine more carefully the doctrinal
force and relations of the experience itself ; espec-
ially the idea that the ordinary Christian experience
involved only a partial consecration, which in the
higher experience, became entire consecration. This
view was soon found to be unscriptural and unphilo-
sophical. No partial consecration could be in any
sense acceptable to God ; nor indeed could such a
partial consecration exist. The idea of the neces-
sary simplicity of moral action became developed
in the Oberlin theology, and the doctrine of sancti-
fication was brought into harmony with this princi-
ple. It was found that the very beginning of the

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 93

Christian life involved entire consecration, and that
the difference, in moral attitude, between the mature
and the immature Christian, is in the continuity or per-
manency of obedience, and not in the heartiness or
genuineness of obedience while it exists. This view of
the case made no provision for the Christian passing
from an unsanctified to a sanctified state, by a single
act of faith, or by any special experience. All ex-
perience in the Christian life must tend to greater
stability, but there is no clear dividing line between
sanctified and unsanctified Christians ; and there can
be no experience which should be called sanctifica-
tion, as distinguished from other experiences which
precede or follow. Conversion is .a turning from sin
to holiness, and the subsequent work of the Chris-
tian is, to resist temptation, to return to obedience
when he has fallen, and to become established in
righteousness.

This view of Christian character was generally ac-
cepted by the leaders of thought at Oberlin, practi-
cally if not theoretically ; and the doctrine of sancti-
fication by special experience, gradually gave place
to a presentation of the baptism of the Spirit as a
condition of a more efficient and permanent Chris-
tian life.

At the height of the interest in these questions of
Christian duty and the Christian life, near the close
of 1838, The Oberlin Evangelist was established as an
organ of communication with the Christian world,
and soon attained a circulation of five thousand
copies. It was a semi-monthly paper of eight quarto
pages. The principal contributors to it were Profes-

94 OBERLIN.

sors Finney and Cowles, President Mahan and Pro-
fessors Morgan and Thome. An office editor was
employed, who received compensation. The labor
of the other writers was entirely gratuitous, and
whatever income there might be, was devoted to the
educational work at Oberlin, chiefly in aid of young
men preparing for the ministry. The publication of
The Evangelist was continued twenty -four years,
until, during the war, it failed for want of support.
Almost every number contained a sermon of Mr.
Finney, reported for the paper, often a letter from
him, and various other communications upon doc-
trine and duty. The whole series of twenty-four
volumes embodies a large amount of valuable Chris-
tian literature, and in its day the paper commanded
a wide influence.

In 1845 tne Oberlin Quarterly Review was estab-
lished, with President Mahan and Professor Wm.
Cochran, and afterward Professor Finney, as editors.
The leading aim of the Quarterly was the more ex-
tended and thorough discussion of these questions
of doctrine and duty, and of others which occupied
public attention. It was issued only four years, and
never secured an adequate support.

In such activities of thought and life, the commu-
nity and the college were constantly exercised and
trained. The regular work of the college was car-
ried forward without material interruption, and the
colonists pushed forward the improvement of their
lands and the various enterprises of the community.
There were periods, oftener near the close of the
year before the winter vacation, when the religious

EARLY SPIRIT AND THOUGHT AND LIFE. 95

interest became deepened and intensified in connec-
tion with the Sabbath services, and almost sponta-
neously the people would gather upon the following
day ; and thus the meetings would be continued from
day to day, for a week or two, or even three, with a
suspension of the ordinary work of the college, and
of the community. On one such occasion there was
a beginning of some complaint on the part of a few
students not in sympathy with the general feeling,
that they were here to study, and not to attend
meetings — that they were here on expense, and it was
not reasonable that their work should be interrupted.
The complaint would seem to have some foundation ;
but Mr. Finney met it in a discourse in which he
told them that the first thing they needed was to be-
come reconciled to God ; that neither study nor any-
thing else was of any account to them until this
great question of life and duty was settled ; that
Oberlin was founded by the servants of God for the
promotion of His cause in the world, to prepare
teachers and preachers for His service ; that the funds
by which the college was sustained were given by
Christian men for this purpose, and they had no right
to avail themselves of these opportunities to prepare
themselves for their own selfish and worldly schemes.
He besought them to give their hearts to God, and
no longer abuse His forbearance or the privileges
afforded them by His people. The appeal was over-
whelming, and silenced if it did not satisfy.

With all this intensity of the religious life, the
prevalent piety of the place was never ascetic, never
noisy or demonstrative. A general cheerfulness per-

96 OBERLIN.

vaded the community ; and the broad culture which
was encouraged and maintained, and the varied in-
terests and occupations which engaged the attention
of citizens and students, were incompatible with any
narrow or extreme type of religious manifestation.
There were, of course, instances of a self-centred and
introspective pietism, but in general the spirit of the
place was active, aggressive, practical, bringing every-
thing to the test of reason, and experience and the
Scriptures. Mr. Shipherd's idea of an isolated
Christian community, by its very position sheltered
from the influences of the world, was scarcely real-
ized. Hundreds of young people from every part
of the land were continually drawn in, and were
again sent forth to find their place and their work
in the world. The connections were too vital and
wide-spread to permit the development of any very
peculiar life.

CHAPTER V.

RELATIONS AND EXPERIENCES, ECCLESIASTICAL AND
POLITICAL.

The families first gathered at Oberlin were of the
New England training and culture, and were thus
inclined to the Congregational order in church ar-
rangements. This was true also of Messrs. Ship-
herd and Stewart, the original founders. But all
New England ministers, coming to the West in those
days, connected themselves with the Presbytery
under the " Plan of Union;" and all the churches or-
ganized among the New England emigrants of the
Western Reserve, while Congregational in their inter-
nal constitution, maintained their outward fellowship
through connection with Presbytery. Messrs. Ma-
han, Finney, and Morgan were Presbyterian in their
church connections before coming to Oberlin, and
had no special leaning to the Congregational order.
The two brothers, Henry and John P. Cowles, were
original Congregationalists, but Henry had been some
years a pastor in Ohio, and was connected, as usual,
with Presbytery. Nothing was farther from the
thoughts of the founders than the idea of a new de-
parture in ecclesiastical matters, or any action not
in harmony with the established order and arrange-
ments of the churches of the region.

The organization of the Oberlin church was begun

98 OBERLIN.

on the 3d of September, 1834, nearly a year and a half
after the first colonists came upon the ground. The
ministers present at the organization were John J.
Shipherd ; Seth H. Waldo, principal of the school ;
John Keyes, pastor of the church at Dover; J. H.
Eells, pastor at Elyria ; and Oliver Eastman, of Ober-
lin. The people assembled in the little school chapel,
the only gathering place, at half-past ten in the
morning, and listened to a sermon from the young
Elyria pastor. In the afternoon sixty-one persons
came forward with letters and credentials, and were
approved as members. The completion of the or-
ganization was accomplished on the 13th of Septem-
ber, when those who had been approved " Resolved
that those who are examined and accepted do now
consider themselves as members, and that the church
is legally and completely organized." At a prelimi-
nary meeting it had been voted that the name of
the church should be " The Congregational Church
of Christ at Oberlin."

The first act of the church after the vote of or-
ganization was to pass the following resolution :
" Resolved, that this church apply to the Presbytery
of Cleveland for admittance and membership, and
that Bro. J. J. Shipherd represent this church in
Presbytery, and that Bro. P. P. Pease accompany him
as a delegate." A confession of faith had been
adopted at the preliminary meeting, orthodox in the
New England Calvinistic sense, setting forth the doc-
trines of God's existence and attributes, the Divine
authority of the Scriptures, the Trinity, Divine Sov-
ereignty, the Fall, Total Depravity, Atonement, Re-

ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS. 99

generation by the Holy Spirit, Election, Perseverance,
and Free Agency. A missing leaf of the record has
taken away the articles on the Ordinances of the
Church, the Resurrection, and the Future Life, which
undoubtedly belonged to the confession.

The church at once gave a unanimous call to Mr.
Shipherd to become their pastor. After some delay,
on account of pressing duties connected with the
establishment of the college and the oversight of its
interests, he accepted the charge, and, with some
interruption from ill-health and his other duties, he
held the position until June, 1836. He then tendered
his resignation, giving as his reasons his poor health,
which disqualified him for the work, and the fact
that the Lord was calling him to the establishment
of other schools which, like Oberlin, should aid in
supplying laborers for the great field. This resigna-
tion was accepted, and Mr. Finney was called to take
" temporary charge" of the church. The relation-
ship was at length made permanent, and Mr. Finney
continued pastor of the church, in connection with
his professorship in the seminary, until 1872. Much
of this time Professor Morgan was associated with
him as his assistant.

In August of this year, 1836, the church appointed
a delegation to meet with the representatives of
other churches at Hudson, for the purpose of organ-
izing a Congregational Association for the Western
Reserve. The organization was consummated at
an adjourned meeting held at Oberlin the following
month, when there were present nine ministers
and thirty-four lay delegates representing twenty

ICO OBERLIN.

churches. The Oberlin church at this time with-
drew from the Presbytery, and became connected
with the W. R. Association. Only two Oberlin
ministers took part in forming the Asssociation —
President Mahan and Professor Jno. P. Cowles.
Others preferred to hold back with the purpose of
still maintaining fraternal relations with their Pres-
byterian brethren. Professor Henry Cowles joined
the Association six years later, and Professors Finney
and Morgan eight years.

There is no record of the motive of the church in
this movement of separation from the Presbytery.
Those who united in forming the Association put
on record their purpose in the organization as fol-
lows :

i. "That this Association has originated in an
honest attachment to the principles of Congregation-
alism ; in a wish to carry out our Saviour's laws of
Christian union ; and in a regard for the welfare of
many churches, both on the Reserve and in the
region south of us, that have not been connected
with any ecclesiastical body, and have been waiting
for and desiring an organization of this sort."

2. "This Association entertain a high regard for
the Presbyterian ministers and churches on the Re-
serve, and would most cordially cherish their Chris-
tian fellowship ; and our movement in forming our-
selves into a distinct organization has not originated
in any lack of confidence in those brethren, nor in
any wish to be dissociated from their communion."

Some months before this change of ecclesiastical
relations the church had appointed a committee to

ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS. 101

revise the " articles of faith:" apparently not be-
cause of any change of theological opinion, or any
serious dissent from the confession as it stood ; but
there was in the church a growing sense of the im-
portance of such an organization of the church that
no Christian should be necessarily excluded from it.
For a long time, apparently, no other church would
be required on account of numbers, and it did not
seem desirable that any subordinate difference of
views should make another church necessary. The
aim in the revision, therefore, was to secure a creed
which should commend itself to all evangelical Chris-
tians. As the result of the deliberation the following
articles were adopted, and have ever since stood as
the confession of the church :

1. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments are given by inspiration of
God, and are the only infallible rule of faith and
practice.

2. We believe in one God, the Creator and Ruler
of the Universe, existing in a Divine and incompre-
hensible Trinity, the Father, the Son Jesus Christ,
and the Holy Ghost, each possessing all Divine per-
fections.

3. We believe in the fall of our first parents, and
the consequent entire apostasy, depravity, and lost
condition of the human race.

4. We believe in the incarnation, death, and atone-
ment of the Son of God ; and that salvation is at-
tained only through repentance and faith in His
blood.

5. We believe in the necessity of a radical change

102 0 BERLIN.

of heart, and that this is effected through the truth
by the agency of the Holy Ghost.

6. We believe that the moral law is binding on all
mankind as the rule of life, and that obedience to it
is the proper evidence of a saving change.

7. We believe that credible evidence of a change
of heart is an indispensable ground of admission to
the privileges of the visible Church.

8. We believe that the ordinances of Baptism and
the Lord's Supper, together with the Christian Sab-
bath, are of perpetual obligation in the church.

9. We believe in a future judgment, the endless
happiness of the righteous, and the endless misery of
the wicked.

There is testimony that the words " the resur-
rection of the dead" were omitted from the last
article by a clerical error in entering it upon the
record ; but the article stands as it was recorded.
For many years care was taken by the pastors, at
every public reading of the Confession, to announce
that it did not contain all that the church believed,
but what was regarded as necessary to membership.

For twenty years and more this was the only
church in Oberlin. At one time a Methodist class
existed here, but there seemed to be no call from
within the community itself for another church, un-
til the members had so increased as to make the
church unwieldy. Doubtless Mr. Finney's powerful
ministry had much to do with this persistent unity.
The church increased in numbers with the growth
of the town and the college until it numbered prob-
ably twelve hundred resident members.

ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS. IC>3

The first place of worship was the small upper
room in Oberlin Hall, the first college building. In
1835 it became impossible to crowd the people into
it, and Sabbath services were held in the new col-
lege boarding-hall, still in an unfinished state ; and
after it was completed the dining-hall was occupied
as a place of meeting. The same year the " colony"
united with the college in the building of Colonial
Hall, with the arrangement that the first story
should be finished as an audience -room, and be
used as a college chapel, and audience-room for the
church. This was completed in the spring of 1836,
and furnished, closely packed, eight hundred sit-
tings. For several years this provision was ade-
quate to the demand ; but at length the place be-
came too strait, and in 1840-41, during the pleas-
ant part of the year, a subsidiary service was held
on Sunday in one of the lecture-rooms of the col-
lege— generally the laboratory or the music-hall. In
the summers, of 1841 and 1842 the " Big Tent" was
spread, on the north-east corner of the square, every
Saturday afternoon, for the Sunday service. The
labor involved was considerable, and the comfort of
the place depended upon the weather. After much
deliberation the church resolved to build a house,
larger than the usual congregation required, suffi-
cient to meet the necessities of commencement oc-
casions. The walls were erected, and the building
was inclosed in 1842, and the commencement was
held in it, still unfinished, in 1843. The building
was a great undertaking for the community at that
time. The expense of building their homes and

104 OBERLlrf.

bringing their farms under cultivation still bore upon
them, and no returns had as yet been received be-
yond the absolutely necessary cost of living. The
professors were all in straitened circumstances, de-
pending on precarious salaries. The students, with
rare exceptions, were self-supporting. But the peo-
ple had a mind to the work, and with a little aid
from friends abroad, who were interested to help the
college to a suitable place for the gatherings at
commencement, the required amount, $12,000, was
raised. At the time it was built it was as desirable
an audience-room as any in the West, and it is diffi-
cult now to find a better. It furnishes permanent
sittings for sixteen hundred persons, and can be
made to accommodate five hundred more. It was
thought to be larger than the ordinary uses of the
church required, but this impression was soon done
away. It was never too large. The house failed to
receive a definite and formal dedication. It was
occupied by the church at various times during the
progress of the work, and as one part after another
was completed, it was recognized with thanksgiving
on the following Sabbath. Thus the work and the
dedication went on together; and when the house
was completed the people found themselves already
domesticated there.

This was the church home for the Oberlin people
as a whole for many years. No college church has
ever been organized at Oberlin. It has been thought
that it was better for all concerned that students
and citizens should be associated in church rela-
tions; that with this arrangement they would better

FIRST CHURCH.

ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS. IO^

Understand and appreciate each other, and the dan-
ger of hostile feeling between the college and the
town would be avoided ; that a more wholesome
religious culture would thus be secured to the stu-
dents, and a general interest in the progress of re-
ligion in the world be better maintained among
them. The result has seemed to justify the plan.

There was naturally among the people at Oberlin
a somewhat settled repugnance to the establishment
of other churches here. This repugnance did not
have its seat in denominationalism, for this was com-
paratively weak among the people ; but rather in the
feeling or conviction that church unity was impor-
tant to the prosperity of the enterprise. There was
more or less anxiety among the different denomina-
tions round about that this vacant territory should
be occupied. A town of two or three thousand peo-
ple, with only a single church, was in some quarters
regarded as proof of a destitution of religious priv-
ileges. Our friends of the Protestant Episcopal
Church seemed to be the first to awake to the
necessities of the situation ; and the voice of a mis-
sionary was soon heard in the Eastern churches set-
ting forth the call for the establishment of gospel
institutions in Oberlin. The Episcopal Church was
organized in the year 1855, and was received with a
degree of hospitality, in spite of the repugnance to
the division of the church interest. When Bishop
Mcllvaine first came to look after his little flock,
the Oberlin First Church was opened to him, and he
held the service there with his people.

When once the line was broken, other church or-

106 OBERLIN.

ganizations soon followed : the Methodist Episcopal,
the Baptist, and a Methodist Church for the colored
people — all organized between 1866 and 1869.

The congregation of the old church was still very
large, and it was difficult for new families to find
comfortable seats in the house, or to make them-
selves fully at home among so many. After full
deliberation it was voted by the church, with only
one dissenting voice, to encourage a part of the
church to withdraw and organize a Second Con-
gregational Church. This was done in the spring of
i860; and the new church, taking about one hun-
dred members the first year from the old church,
set up for itself, holding its services in the college
chapel. Those who volunteered for the new enter-
prise were dismissed with a benediction, and only
fraternal feelings have ever existed between the two
churches.

Up to this time there had been no pastor in the
old church exclusively devoted to the work of the
church. Mr. Finney and his assistants held pro-
fessorships in the college.

The Second Church after a few months called a
pastor, Rev. M. W. Fairfield, to give himself exclu-
sively to the work. He remained four years, when
the church returned to the old habit of employing
the professors, which continued until February, 1876,
when Rev. Wm. Kincaid was called, and filled the
position until 1882, when failing health compelled
him to retire.

Mr. Finney resigned the pastorate of the First
Church in 1872, and Rev. James Brand was called

ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS. 10?

iii 1873, and still continues in the work. The First
and Second churches have been about equally pros-
pered as to numbers, reporting 870 and 624 respec-
tively in the Year-book for 1883.

The war coming on soon after the organization of
the Second Church, absorbed all the means and en-
ergy of the people, so that, for six or seven years,
nothing was done toward building a house. In the
autumn of 1870 the Second Church was dedicated.
The audience- room furnishes eleven hundred sit-
tings, and in the basement are the Sunday-school
room, prayer-room, and parlors.

The other churches of the place all have comforta-
ble houses, so that the church destitution of the
early days has passed away. There is work and
room for all ; and it would be difficult to find a com-
munity in which the different denominations have a
better understanding with each other, or are more
ready for all reasonable co-operation. The colored
church came into existence, not because the colored
people were not welcomed to all the churches, nor
because a separate organization was desired by those
who had been most favored with education and cul-
ture, but because considerable numbers of them felt
more at home with a style of service and instruction
more like that with which they had been familiar
from their childhood.

The college is not organically denominational. It
has no connection with any ecclesiastical organiza-
tion. The trustees invite the State Congregational
Associations of Ohio and Michigan to send visitors
annually to the theological seminary. The board

108 OB E RUN.

of trustees is a self-perpetuating body, and there is
nothing in the charter, nor even in the by-laws, limit-
ing the choice of trustees in any respect whatsoever.
The nine corporators named in the charter, as granted
by the Legislature, were pastors and members of
churches under the Plan of Union, a considerable
portion of them decidedly Presbyterian in their lean-
ings. Of their successors the majority have been
Congregationalists ; but there have always been mem-
bers of the Board who were connected with other
denominations. There is no regulation requiring
that professors and instructors shall have any church
connections whatever. There is no creed to which
theological professors even are required to assent in
their inauguration. All these things regulate them-
selves under the organic forces that have controlled
the movement ; and no embarrassment, no question
even, has ever arisen upon the subject. The college
is Congregational, not because of the definite pur-
pose of the founders, or of any of the earlier framers
of its polity, but because the seed that was planted
thus grew. For the first two years it seemed an
even question under what influences it would at
length develop. If the surrounding Presbyterianism
had been able to welcome the new enterprise, Ober-
lin might have been Presbyterian.

The students of the college determine for them-
selves with what church they will worship ; but they
are required to make a selection, and to attend that
church continuously for a term.

POLITICAL ACTION. IOO,

POLITICAL ACTION.

The early inhabitants of Oberlin, those who
came as colonists, were New Englanders, immedi-
ately or remotely, and hence were members of the
Whig party. There was probably no exception to
this rule. The Whig party, as they knew it, was
the party of order and progress and intelligence,
and they felt it almost as necessary to be Whigs
as to be Christians. People of other views in
politics soon appeared, but they were not of the
original stock. Until 1837 nothing occurred to in-
dicate that the people of Oberlin would ever do any-
thing else than vote the respectable Whig ticket.
They had become abolitionized, but they were just
as good Whigs as ever. In the autumn of that year
there was an election in the county for representa-
tive to the State Legislature. The day before the
election a report was circulated in Oberlin that the
Whig candidate was not careful in his observance
of the Sabbath. A spontaneous gathering of the
voters was held, and Mr. Finney and others were
invited to give their suggestions as to the duty of
the hour. The result was that a large proportion of
the Oberlin voters " threw away their votes." The
two parties were closely balanced in the county, and
the Oberlin vote turned the scale. The next even-
ing, as the returns came in at Elyria, the county
seat, the shouters of the two parties were drawn up
on opposite sides of the square, and the returns were
cried out from the court-house steps. The balance

110 O BERLIN.

inclined now in one direction, and now in the other ;
but the Whigs were full of hope until the returns
came in from Russia township, which contained the
village of Oberlin. These returns threw their whole
calculation out of balance, and the Whigs retired in
disgust. It was currently reported on the streets
that a dozen men volunteered, and teams were
offered, to go to Oberlin and " tar and feather Mr.
Finney." Probably a sober second thought sug-
gested that the proceeding would scarcely be in
keeping with the claims of the party of law and
order. They never appeared at Oberlin. From this
time Oberlin was reckoned an uncertain quantity in
the matter of political action. The antislavery
question began to have a practical bearing both in
state and general politics; and the Oberlin vote
could always be depended on where it would tell
against the pro-slavery attitude of the government.
If " black laws" for the state of Ohio were in ques-
tion, the representative from Lorain County had be-
fore his eyes the Oberlin vote, which still turned the
scale in the county. The time came at length when
three men in the Legislature — of whom the represen-
tative from Lorain, Dr. N. S. Townshend, a trustee
of Oberlin College, was one — held the balance of
power between the two parties, and sent Salmon P.
Chase to the Senate of the United States. Thus
the antislavery sentiment of the Oberlin people be-
came an active force in politics. At the Presidential
election in 1840, a Liberty candidate for the Presi-
dency was put forward, and the majority of the
people of Oberlin voted for him. There was some

POLITICAL ACTION. Ill

division of sentiment at this time — a portion of the
people still hoping for antislavery action from the
Whig party. In 1844 almost the entire Oberlin vote
was cast for the candidate of the Liberty party,
James G. Birney. In 1848 there was still some dis-
traction, but a large majority voted for Van Buren,
the Free Soil candidate, and afterward the Oberlin
vote was with the Republican party. It will thus
appear that the aim at Oberlin in the matter of po-
litical action has always been practical. The men
voted for were not always satisfactory representa-
tives of the Oberlin sentiment, but they occupied
such a position that a vote for them would bear
most directly upon the great end. Those who
claimed to be, during these years, the true, radical,
abolitionists, were either not voting at all, like the
followers of Mr. Garrison, or were voting for Gerrit
Smith, because he was right on all questions pertain-
ing to slavery. The people at Oberlin voted for Van
Buren, for Fremont, for Lincoln, because these men
represented a movement which bore directly upon
the power and extension of slavery in the land.

There were other things to be done at Oberlin, in
an antislavery way, besides the use of the ballot.
The decision to receive colored students, made when
there was no such student probably within a hun-
dred miles, soon brought forth results. The first
colored student was James Bradley, from Cincinnati,
who followed the Lane Seminary students to Ober-
lin. Others soon came, but not in large numbers.
From 1840 to i860 the proportion of colored stu-
dents was four or five per cent. Soon after the war

1 1 2 OBERLltf.

the ratio rose to seven or eight per cent, but has"
fallen again to five or six in a hundred. No adap-
tation of the course of study to the special needs of
colored pupils was ever made. It was not a colored
school that was proposed, but a school where colored
students should have equal privileges with others.
No record of colored students has been kept distinct
from the general record. No distinctive mark ap-
pears in the catalogues. The only reliance for the
past is the knowledge and memory of instructors
and others.

Among the 20,000 different pupils that have been
in attendance from the beginning probably 1000
have been colored. Sixty have completed a course
— thirty-two young men and twenty-eight young
women. Some of these were brilliant scholars, some
have attained to distinction, and most are occupy-
ing positions of usefulness in the land.

The chief benefit of the open door for the colored
people at Oberlin, however, has probably not been in
this direct result, nor even in the indirect effect in
opening other schools in a similar way. These results
are important, but above all there is the reaction of
the arrangement upon the large number of young
people who have received their education, more or
less, at Oberlin. These came from all parts of the
land, and scattered as widely when they left. It mat-
tered little what were their views on slavery, or their
feelings toward the colored people, when they came.
They might at first look scornfully on the colored
fellow-student, but soon a kindly feeling grew upon
them, and they became friends of the colored people,

POLITICAL ACTION. 113

and champions of their rights ; and thus the anti-
slavery influence was diffused. It is probable that
the arrangement was more important to the white
students than to the colored. The great question of
the times arrested their attention, and they became
settled in their attitude and action in regard to it.
A single colored student in each class, unconsciously
to himself, accomplished the work. He stood there
in his own right, " a man and a brother," more effec-
tive than all the antislavery sermons that Oberlin
could have brought to bear. No such sermons were
called for. Every student was left to determine for
himself whether he would recognize his colored fel-
low-pupil. Nothing in this respect was required of
him. He was not permitted to abuse him, and that
was the limit of the obligation imposed. Classes
were never seated alphabetically in the recitation-
room or in the chapel ; hence no one was required
to sit next a colored student. He must consent to
be in the same class with him, or forego the oppor-
tunities of the school ; but to this he had made up
his mind when he came. No difficulties in discipline,
so far as is remembered, ever arose from the arrange-
ment. In a few rare instances a colored and a white
boy have had a quarrel, and occasionally a colored
student has imagined that some disrespect was shown
him by a fellow-student ; but in general each one
has found the place that belonged to him, in the re-
gard of his fellows, irrespective of color.

The same action which brought colored students
to the school, brought colored families to the town
to find their homes. At first, some of the more

1 14 OBERLIN.

properous of the free colored people of the Slave
States came in to secure privileges for themselves
and their children. Some of the more enterprising
of the slaves at length heard of Oberlin, and crept
in stealthily to see whether what they had heard
was true. Some of these found courage to remain,
and thus the colored element gradually increased
until it has become a fifth part of the population.
There are among the colored people several pros-
perous business men and successful mechanics. A
larger portion are day laborers. They are a quiet
and peaceable people in general, anxious for educa-
tion for their children, and on the whole gradually
improving.

Oberlin was, of course, an important station on
the Underground Railroad ; and a volume might
be written of incidents and experiences, pathetic,
amusing, and exciting, which befell the people in
meeting their responsibilities in regard to this busi-
ness. The fugitives who came through Oberlin
were generally shipped for Canada, at some neigh-
boring port on the Lake, between Cleveland and
Sandusky. There were captains of sailing vessels
and steamers, many of them, who, it was well under-
stood, would never observe when a group of timid
fugitives crept aboard their ships, and hid them-
selves away in some dark corner ; and there were men
at all these ports ready to despatch a trusty messenger
to Oberlin when such a ship came in. It was a con-
venience in the transaction of the business that it
mattered little to what port in Canada the vessel
was bound. The emigrants could be dropped at

POLITICAL ACTION. 115

any point between Windsor and the Welland Canal,
to their entire satisfaction. It was free soil they
were in pursuit of, and it was of no account what
other qualities the soil possessed. If it yielded no
fetters nor masters, it was the soil for them. Some
of these fugitives found themselves so comfortable
at Oberlin, that they lingered here, and made a per-
manent home. There was risk in this, and it was
not generally encouraged. But there were always
numbers of this class among the colored people, and
the appearance of a suspected slave-catcher in the
community produced consternation. Every device
for concealing fugitives was resorted to ; every move-
ment for transporting them to the point of embarka-
was carefully planned. Sometimes the ruse was
adopted of starting off a load of pretended fugitives
toward the Lake, with great show of carefulness,
while the real fugitives were quietly taken away in
another direction. In one instance a student es-
corted a colored man, attired and veiled as a woman,
on horseback, across the country to Huron.

It was not regarded as legitimate to go into the
Slave States and entice the slaves from their mas-
ters ; not because of scruples in regard to the mas-
ter's real ownership, but because it would be a reck-
less undertaking, involving too much risk, and proba-
bly doing more harm than good. One person, Cal-
vin Fairbanks, went from Oberlin to Kentucky for
this purpose, in 1845, against the remonstrance of
several who knew his intention. He soon found
himself in the penitentiary, and served out a term
of eleven years. There was abundant sympathy for

Il6 OBERLM.

him, but no approval of his undertaking. An-
other, George Thompson, who had been a student
at Oberlin, but was at the time a member of Mission
Institute at Quincy, 111., for an effort to aid a slave
to escape from Missouri, served a term of five years,
with two companions, in the Missouri Penitentiary.
Not to deliver to his master the servant that had
escaped from his master, seemed to the people of
Oberlin a solemn and pressing duty. This attitude
exposed the college and the community to much
reproach, and sometimes apparently to serious dan-
ger. Threats came from abroad that the college
buildings should be burned. A Democratic Legis-
lature, at different times, agitated the question of
repealing the college charter. The fourth and last
attempt was made in 1843, when the bill for repeal
was indefinitely postponed in the House, by a vote
of thirty-six to twenty-nine.

The people in neighboring towns were, at the
outset, not in sympathy with Oberlin in its anti-
slavery position. They agreed with the rest of the
world in regarding it as unmitigated fanaticism.
The feeling was often bitter and intense, and an
Oberlin man going out from home in any direction
was liable to be assailed with bitter words ; and if
he ventured to lecture upon the unpopular theme,
he was fortunate if he encountered words only. Of
course the self-respectful part of the community
would take no part in such abuse, but fellows of the
baser sort felt themselves sustained by the common
feeling. On the Middle Ridge road, six miles north
of Oberlin, a guide-board put up by the authorities,

POLITICAL ACTION. 117

stood for years, pointing the way to Oberlin, not by
the ordinary index finger, but by the full length fig-
ure of a fugitive running with all his might to reach
the place. The tavern sign, four miles east, was
ornamented, on its Oberlin face, with the representa-
tion of a fugitive slave pursued by a tiger. Where
the general feeling yielded such results, not much
could be expected in the way of sympathy for the
fugitives. But even among these people the slave-
catcher had little favor. They would thwart his
pursuit in every way, and shelter the fugitive if
they could. Only the meanest and most mercenary
could be hired to betray the victim. Now and then
an official felt called upon to extend aid and comfort
to the slave-hunter who claimed his service, but
he could expect no toleration from his neighbors in
such a course. A whole neighborhood would sud-
denly find themselves abolitionists upon the appear-
ance of a slave-hunter among them ; and by repeated
occurrences of this kind, as much as by any other
means, Lorain County, and all Northern Ohio, be-
came at length intensely antislavery in feeling and
action.

It was not often that a slave was seized in Oberlin,
and no one, during all the dark years, was ever carried
back to bondage. Violent resistance, in the form of
personal assault upon the kidnapper, was not encour-
aged, and no instance of bloodshed or personal harm
ever occurred ; but the people would rally in a mass
and hinder the captor from proceeding with his vic-
tim, and oblige him to exhibit his authority, and
repair at once to the nearest court to establish the

Il8 0 BERLIN.

legality of his proceedings. Often the illegality of
the process was so marked that the slaves would be
at once discharged ; and once discharged, they were
soon beyond danger.

In the spring of 1841 an arrest took place, one
Friday evening, at a house then standing in the
forest one mile east of the centre. Some public
meeting was in progress in the college chapel when
the alarm reached town. A committee of citizens
and students was appointed to follow the kidnap-
pers, and do whatever could be legally done to res-
cue the two victims, a man and his wife, from their
clutches. The people turned out in committee of
the whole, entirely unarmed, and without definite
thought as to what could be done. They overtook
the company on the State road, two or three miles
south-east of the village, and effectually interrupted
their progress for the night. In the morning the
slave-claimants were induced to go to Elyria and
have their process reviewed in court. Their papers
were found to be irregular, and the two fugitives
were placed in jail until the claimants could return
to Kentucky and obtain the required evidence. At
the same time a warrant was served upon the claim-
ants for assault and battery with deadly weapons,
and threats of violence toward members of the fam-
ily that had sheltered the fugitives, and they were
bound over to appear in the same court in their own
defence. Before the day of trial came, one of the
two received a summons to appear before the Judge
of all the earth. The other returned sad and de-
jected to the twofold trial, to find that the slaves

POLITICAL ACTION. II9

had broken jail and escaped. The Kentuckian, too,
was released without trial. It did not appear that
any force from without had been used in behalf of
the slaves. A basket-maker in the jail had been fur-
nished by the jailer with the implements of his trade
with which he opened a way for himself, and the
others followed.

Under the notorious fugitive-slave law of 1850, a
case of attempted recovery of a fugitive occurred in
September, 1858. The case appeared in the U. S.
Circuit Court at Cleveland the following spring, and
excited much interest in the country as the " Ober-
lin-Wellington Rescue Case," It was nearly the
last instance of an attempt to execute the fugitive
slave law in Northern Ohio, as well as in the coun-
try. John Brown came a few months later, then
Lincoln and Sumter and emancipation. A young
black man, John Price, supposed to be a fugitive
from Kentucky, had been some months at Oberlin,
when a group of four strangers came into town and
took up their quarters at an obscure tavern where
they would attract little attention, and where, if at
all, they would find some sympathy with their un-
dertaking. About four miles from town they found
a man ready to afford them advice, and with a young
son of this man, about thirteen years of age, they
laid a plot for the seizure of John. The scheme
was arranged on Sunday, and Monday morning the
boy came into town with a horse and buggy, looked
up John, and offered him large wages to go with him
into the country a mile or two to dig potatoes. A
mile or more out of town, as they were driving very

120 OBERLIN.

leisurely, they were overtaken by a carriage contain-
ing one of the parties from Kentucky and two oth-
ers, a deputy U. S. marshal and a deputy sheriff
from Columbus, O. Two of these men stepped out,
seized John, hurried him, with threats and a show of
weapons, into their carriage, and took the diagonal
road, two miles east of Oberlin, which leads to Wel-
lington, nine miles south. At Wellington they would
soon find a train for Columbus and Cincinnati. For
this treachery the boy, as he afterward testified in
court, was paid twenty dollars.

Two men coming from Pittsfield met the car-
riage which was bearing John away, and reported
the fact in town. Some of the colored people had
had suspicions and alarms the previous week, on ac-
count of inquiries made, and were ready at once to
accept the idea that John had been carried off. The
news spread through the town, and under a com-
mon impulse, without concerted action, large num-
bers of the people, white and colored, citizens and
students, were soon on the road to Wellington.
Every form of conveyance was pressed into service,
and probably two or three hundred people in all
went from Oberlin to Wellington that afternoon.
Others fell in along the way, and Wellington fur-
nished its share of the crowd. John and his captors,
the two officers from Columbus and the two men
from Kentucky, were waiting at the hotel for the
first train going south. The crowd soon swarmed
about the house, and John was taken to a room in
the garret for safe-keeping. Quite a number of
guns appeared in the crowd — some of the witnesses

POLITICAL ACTION. 12 1

in court put the number as high as fifty ; one of the
Kentuckians estimated it at five hundred. No gun
was fired, and it is not certain that one was loaded.
The crowd acted without concert and had no leader,
but persistently kept their place around the house,
and filled the rooms below and above. They were
not harmonious in their views of what ought to be
done ; the more conservative were disposed to as-
certain that the proceedings had been regular under
the fugitive-slave law, and on that condition to al-
low the party to go on its way. The larger portion
probably had no respect for the infamous law, and
held it their duty to rescue John, whatever the au-
thority by which he was held. No one seemed to
take responsibility on one side or on the other.
Different persons, among them a magistrate and a
lawyer of Wellington, were shown the warrant in
the hands of the marshal for the arrest of John, and
this warrant was read to the crowd ; but it brought
no relief. The train for the south passed, but did
not take John and his captors. Finally, near sun-
set, a little group that had gathered about John in
the upper room started him down the stairs, and
the crowd passed him on to a buggy standing near,
lifted him in, and the buggy was driven rapidly
toward Oberlin. John found refuge in Oberlin two
or three days, and was then sent on to Canada. It
was a flagrant case of resistance to the execution of
the fugitive law ; and if it were allowed to pass
without serious animadversion, the law, which was
supposed to be vital to the maintenance of the
Union, would fall. The machinery of the govern-

122 OBERLIN.

ment was set in motion, and a trial in the United
States Court at Cleveland was determined on. Judge
Willson brought the case before the grand jury in an
elaborate charge, from which the following is an ex-
tract :

" There are some who oppose the execution of
this law from a declared sense of conscientious duty.
There is, in fact, a sentiment prevalent in the com-
munity which arrogates to human conduct a stand-
ard of right above, and independent of, human laws ;
and it makes the conscience of each individual in so-
ciety the test of his own accountability to the laws
of the land.

" While those who cherish this dogma claim and
enjoy the protection of the law for their own life
and property, they are unwilling that the law should
be operative for the protection of the constitutional
rights of others. It is a sentiment semi-religious in
its development, and is almost invariably character^
ized by intolerance and bigotry. The leaders of
those who acknowledge its obligations and advocate
its sanctity are like the subtle prelates of the dark
ages. They are versed in all they consider useful
and sanctified learning. Trained in certain schools in
New England to manage words, they are equally
successful in the social circle to manage hearts ; sek
dom superstitious themselves, yet skilled in practis-
ing upon the superstition and credulity of others —
false, as it is natural a man should be whose dogmas
impose upon all who are not saints according to his
creed the necessity of being hypocrites ; selfish, as it
is natural a man should be who claims for himself

POLITICAL ACTION. 1 23

the benefits of the law and the right to violate it,
thereby denying its protection to others. . . .

" Gentlemen, this sentiment should find no place
or favor in the grand-jury room.
The fugitive-slave law may, and unquestionably
does, contain provisions repugnant to the moral
sense of many good and conscientious people ; nev-
ertheless, it is the law of the United States, and as
such should be recognized and executed by our
courts and juries, until abrogated or otherwise
changed by the legislative department of the gov-
ernment."

This is a favorable specimen of the manner in
which the doctrine of " the higher law" was dealt
with in those days. A ruder statement of the same
idea was made by Judge Leavitt, of Cincinnati, the
same year. In a charge to the jury he said : ''Chris-
tian charity was not within the meaning or intent of
the fugitive-slave law, and it would not, therefore,
answer as a defence for violating the law."

The grand jury, moved by this charge, made out
thirty-seven indictments against twenty-four citizens
of Oberlin and thirteen of Wellington. Among the
Oberlin men were Prof. H. E. Peck, of the College
Faculty; J. M. Fitch, superintendent of the large
Oberlin Sunday-school; Ralph Plumb, a lawyer;
and other prominent citizens and students, good
men and true. Among the men from Wellington
were several of their leading citizens, pioneers of the
town, and pillars in society.

The same day, Marshal Johnson appeared in
Oberlin to arrest these violators of law. He called

124 OBERLIN.

first on Professor Peck and made known his errand,
and asked of him the favor of an introduction to
the other parties. He accepted from each one the
promise to appear at Cleveland in court the next day.
According to promise, these men appeared in court
Dec. /th, and asked for immediate trial, but at the in-
stance of the prosecuting attorney the case was ad-
journed first to March 8th, and again to April 5th.
The defendants declined to give bail, and were sent
away upon their own recognizance of $1000 each.
On the 5th of April the trial commenced, and con-
tinued with slight interruptions until the middle of
May, when the cases were put over until the July
term. At this time two of the alleged rescuers,
Simeon Bushnell, a white man, and Charles H.
Langston, a colored man, had been convicted and
sentenced. Messrs. Spalding, Riddle and Griswold,
prominent lawyers of Cleveland, had volunteered to
conduct the case for the defence without charge.
They had done their work with great ability, but
the conviction seemed a foregone conclusion. Bush-
nell was sentenced to sixty days' imprisonment, a
fine of six hundred dollars and costs of prosecu-
tion— understood to be about two thousand more.
Langston, when asked if he had anything to say for
himself, made a manly and eloquent address, which
thrilled the court and indeed the country. The clos-
ing paragraph was as follows :

" But I stand up here to say, that if, for doing
what I did that day at Wellington, I am to go in jail
six months, and pay a fine of a thousand dollars, ac-
cording to the fugitive-slave law, and such is the pro-

POLITICAL ACTION. 125

tection the laws of this country afford me, I must take
upon myself the responsibility of self-protection ;
and when I come to be claimed by some perjured
wretch as his slave, I shall never be taken into
slavery. And as in that trying hour I would have
others do to me ; as I would call upon others to help
me ; as I would call upon you, your Honor, to help
me ; as I would call upon you, [to the district attor-
ney], and upon you [to the counsel for prosecution]
and upon you [to his own counsel], so help me GOD !
I stand here to say that I will do all I can for any
man thus seized and held, though the inevitable pen-
alty of six months' imprisonment and one thousand
dollars' fine for each offence hangs over me. We
have a common humanity. You would do so ;- your
manhood would require it : and, no matter what the
laws might be, you would honor yourself for doing
it ; your friends would honor you for doing it ; your
children to all generations would honor you for do-
ing it ; and every good and honest man would say
you had done right."

The court seemed impressed by this appeal, and
sentenced Langston to a fine of only one hundred
dollars and twenty days' imprisonment, with costs of
prosecution.

In pronouncing the sentence upon Bushnell the
judge indulged in various arguments in support of
the action of the court, of which the following is a
specimen :

" A man of your intelligence must know that if
the standard of right is placed above and against the
laws of the land, those who act up to it are anything

1 26 OBERLIJST.

else than good citizens and good Christians. You
must know that when a man acts upon any system
of morals or theology which teaches him to disregard
and violate the laws of the government that protects
him in life and property, his conduct is as criminal as
his example is dangerous."

This is an illustration of the logic and the spirit in
which the fugitive-slave law was defended in those
days. It would be admitted that there might be a
conflict between this law and the law of God, and
then the principle was boldly announced that man's
law was to be obeyed rather than God's.

The political aspect of the trial was very distinct.
The judge, the prosecuting attorney and assisting
counsel, and every member of the jury in Bushnell's
case belonged to the party of the administration,
while every one of the defendants and their counsel
were of the opposition.

At the close of Langston's trial, when the cases
were to be deferred from the middle of May to the
July term, several of the indicted from Wellington
entered a plea of nolle contendere, and were sen-
tenced to pay a fine of twenty dollars each and costs
of prosecution, and to remain in jail twenty-four
hours. One old man from Wellington was almost
entreated to leave the jail and go home. He at
length consented. Thus all that remained, including
the two convicted parties, were fourteen Oberlin
men. These had been in jail since April 15th, and
were to continue in jail through the recess of court.
■ — two long summer months, and how much longer
no one could foresee. They continued in jail upon a

CLEVELAND JAIL

POLITICAL ACTION. 12?

point of honor. At the beginning of the trial they
had been allowed to come and go upon their recogni-
zance, giving their personal pledge for appearance
when called for. At the conclusion of Bushnell's
trial there was a ruling of the court so unjust, that
they gave notice that they would dismiss their coun-
sel, call no witnesses, and make no defence ; and their
counsel approved their decision. Thereupon the
prosecuting attorney demanded that they should be
taken into custody, and they were taken in charge
by the marshal, and declining to give bail they were
committed to jail. The unjust ruling was afterwards
recalled in fact, and they were notified that their
own recognizance would be accepted as before ; but
a false record had been made — a record which put
the defendants in the wrong, and the court refused
to correct it. They therefore declined to renew
their recognizance or to give bail, and therefore they
lay in jail from the 15th of April on. The sheriff
to whom they were committed, and the jailer, and
indeed a large portion of the people of Cleveland,
were their warm friends, and in hearty sympathy
with their course.

During the recess of court an attempt was made
to obtain relief by an appeal to the State courts. A
writ of habeas corpus was granted by one of the
judges of the Supreme Court, commanding the
sheriff to bring Bushnell and Langston before the
court, that the reason of their imprisonment might
be considered. The case was ably argued before
the full bench, at Columbus, for a week; but the
court, three to two, declined to grant a release.

128 OBERLIN.

This was a severe blow to the men in jail. They
had counted with much confidence upon relief from
that quarter. It is idle to speculate upon possible
results, if a single judge had held a different opinion.
Salmon P. Chase was governor at that time, and it
was well understood that he would sustain a decision
releasing the prisoners, by all the power at his com-
mand ; and the United States Government was as
fully committed to the execution of the fugitive-slave
law. This would have placed Ohio in conflict with
the general government in defence of State rights,
and if the party of freedom throughout the North
had rallied, as seemed probable, the war might have
come in 1859 instead of 1861, with a secession of the
Northern instead of the Southern States. A single
vote apparently turned the scale ; and after a little de-
lay the party of freedom took possession of the govern-
ment, and the party of slavery became the seceders.
Of course those who urged Ohio to the conflict did
not anticipate war with the general government.
They expected the general government to retire
from the execution of the fugitive-slave law, and thus
remove the occasion of the conflict.

During this recess of court, on the 24th of May,
a mass meeting was convened in Cleveland, gather-
ing the people of Northern Ohio by thousands, to
express their sympathy with the rescuers, and their
intense condemnation of the fugitive-slave law.
There was great enthusiasm — an immense proces-
sion with banners passing through the streets, and
around the square, and in front of the jail. The
crowds were addressed by Joshua R. Giddings and

POLITICAL ACTION. 1 29

Salmon P. Chase, with other distinguished men.
Mr. Giddings was bold and defiant :

" I have no hesitation as to the means for acting-
upon this great matter which is now before us. I
would have a committee appointed to-day to apply
to the first and nearest officer who has the power, that
he shall issue a writ for the release of those prisoners,
and I want to be appointed on that committee, and
if so I will promise you that no sleep shall come to
my eyelids this night until I have used my utmost
endeavors to have these men released. I will, if such
a committee be appointed, apply to Judge Tilden
[at his side], and if he flinched in the exercise of his
duty, and refused to issue this writ, I would never
speak to him again, or give him my hand. If he
failed I would go to another and another, until death
came to close my eyelids. I know that the Demo-
cratic press throughout the country has represented
me as counselling forcible resistance to this law, and
God knows it is the first truth they have ever told
about me."

Governor Chase was more wary and circumspect,
with a sense of immediate responsibility :

" If the process for the release of any prisoner
should issue from the courts of the State, he was free'
to say that so long as Ohio was a sovereign State
that process should be executed. He did not coun-
sel revolutionary measures, but when his time came
and his duty was plain, he, as the Governor of Ohio,
would meet it as a man."

The resolutions adopted by the meeting were de-
cided and radical, and, read at this day, sound as if

1 30 OBERLIN.

they had emanated from some State-rights conven-
tion. The last scene was a gathering of the crowds
around the jail yard, to listen to brief addresses from
Messrs. Langston, Peck, Fitch, and Plumb in behalf
of the prisoners. Their words were earnest and de-
termined, without railing or bitterness. The meet-
ing yielded no immediate result in behalf of the
prisoners, and no such result was anticipated. It
amounted to a notice that the fugitive-slave law was
to be no farther executed in Northern Ohio.

The rescuers, after this, settled down to prison
life, without any distinct anticipation when or how
the end was to come. Some of them were mechan-
ics, of various crafts, and their friends furnished
them the tools and materials for prosecuting their
business. Two of them were printers, and a print-
ing-office was soon established in the jail, and a paper
named the " The Rescuer" was issued. Five thou-
sand copies of the first number were sent out, and it
was promised every alternate Monday. The two
students in the group were furnished with books,
and set themselves to the work of their classes.
Visitors from all parts of the land came to the jail,
and letters of sympathy and funds to meet expenses
poured in upon them.

One of the most interesting occasions at the jail
was a visit of four hundred Sabbath-school chil-
dren from Oberlin — the school of which Mr. Fitch
had been superintendent sixteen years. They were
invited and entertained by the Sabbath-school of
the Plymouth Church, Cleveland ; then they filed
into the jail, filling all its corridors and open spaces,

f^sJ^?^,

POLITICAL ACTION. I3I

and an hour was given to brief addresses from their
superintendent and others, with music interspersed.
This was on the 2d of July. Four days later, the
jail doors opened and the rescuers came forth, and
were escorted with jubilations to their homes.

The occasion of the release was this : The four
men who were engaged in the seizure of John at
Oberlin had been indicted in Lorain County for
kidnapping, and their trial was set for the 6th of
July, six days before the resumption of the trials in
the U. S. court at Cleveland. The indictment was
not without apparent foundation. The description
given of John, in the power of attorney under which
the seizure was made, was grossly deficient and in-
accurate, and there was no sufficient proof of title to
John in the claimant who issued the power of attor-
ney. These indicted men were abroad on bail until
near the time of trial at Elyria. Then a writ of habeas
corpus was obtained from a judge of the U. S. court,
and an attempt was made to deliver up the four men
to the sheriff of Lorain County, that the writ might
be served upon him, and his prisoners be released
by order of the U. S. judge. An accumulation of
hindrances prevented this delivery, and the hour
of trial was just at hand when the writ would be
useless. The men were alarmed. They interceded
with the U. S. attorney to propose to the counsel
for the rescuers that the suits on both sides should
be dropped. To this the rescuers consented. The
marshal went to the jail and announced that they
were free. They were escorted from the prison to
the train by several hundred of the citizens of

132 0 BERLIN.

Cleveland, to the music of Hecker's band, while
a hundred guns were fired on the square. The last
tune from the band as the train started was " Home,
Sweet Home." The Plain Dealer of that evening
announced the result with great disgust : " So the
government has been beaten at last, with law, jus-
tice, and facts all on its side, and Oberlin, with its
rebellious, higher law creed, is triumphant."

At Oberlin the rescuers were met at the station
by the whole mass of the people, and escorted to
the great church, where for hours, until midnight,
the pent-up feeling of the people found expression
in song and prayer, and familiar talk over the ex-
periences of the preceding weeks. It was a costly
price to pay, but it secured to Oberlin, from that
time on, freedom from the incursions of the slave-
catcher, and Northern Ohio largely shared in the
immunity.

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY.

OBERLIN was itself a missionary enterprise. It was
the purpose to carry the Gospel to the regions beyond
that had brought Mr. and Mrs. Shipherd, under ap-
pointment from the American Home Missionary So-
ciety, to the regions of Northern Ohio. Mr. and Mrs.
Stewart had been engaged for years as missionaries
among the Choctaws in the State of Mississippi, and,
while resting from those labors for the recovery of
health, they pledged themselves for five years to the
work of laying the foundations at Oberlin, without
any compensation but food and clothing. The families
that came to find their homes in the wilderness had
no visions of improved outward circumstances and
growing wealth. They came to aid in establishing
a community and an institution which should con-
tribute to the evangelization of the Mississippi valley
— then the " New West." The students, for the most
part, came with the same purpose, their hearts full
of the earnest impulses which had been begotten in
the great revival movement of those years. One of
the earliest associations organized among the stu-
dents was a Missionary Society, embracing such as
contemplated a life-work in the foreign field.

The first among the students to enter upon mis-

134 OBERLIN.

sionary service was Miss Angeline Tenney, who
married Mr. S. N. Castle, a missionary of the Ameri-
can Board, and went to the Sandwich Islands, in
1836. But from this time on, for many years, the
earnest antislavery feeling on the part of Oberlin
students, and the somewhat dubious attitude of the
American Board on the subject of slavery, combined
to prevent men and women from Oberlin receiving
appointments from the Board. The distrust seemed
to be mutual. The conservative fathers at the East
looked with apprehension upon what seemed to
them, in the distance, the religious and reformatory
fanaticism of Oberlin, and wisely, as they thought,
concluded not to open the way for its extension to
their field. An Oberlin young woman was now and
then sent out, without objection, as the wife of a mis-
sionary, whose only connection with Oberlin was by
marriage. There were two or three instances of
young men, with sufficient conservative endorsement,
receiving appointments from the Board. But in gen-
eral Oberlin students were disinclined to seek such
appointments, although there was at that time no
other missionary organization to which they could
look for support. The church at Oberlin, with rare
individual exceptions, did not contribute to the
funds of the American Board, but found other chan-
nels for their missionary gifts, until the Board at-
tained a more satisfactory attitude on the subject of
slavery.

Under these conditions the idea of self-sustaining
missions was very generally favored, and a large
amount of independent missionary work was accom-

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. 1 35

plished. Much of this, very naturally, was expended
among the colored people, at home and abroad.
Teachers of colored schools went to Cincinnati, and
to other towns of Ohio, where the colored people
were found in sufficient numbers to call for such ser-
vices— sometimes encouraged by the promise of aid
from some philanthropic person in the neighbor-
hood, often without compensation except the little
that the colored people themselves could afford.
Missionaries and teachers in considerable numbers
went to the colored fugitives in Canada, led by Hi-
ram Wilson, of the Theological Class of 1836, one
of the Lane Seminary men. Funds were raised among
the antislavery people of Ohio, and at the East, to
sustain this Canada mission.

In the winter of 1836-7, David S. Ingraham, an-
other of the Lane students, finding it necessary for
his health to seek a warmer climate, went to Ha-
vana, Cuba. He was a skilful mechanic, and finding
that he could sustain himself there without difficulty,
he conceived the idea of establishing a self-support-
ing mission among the colored people of Jamaica,
recently emancipated. He returned to Oberlin, was
ordained as a missionary, and in the autumn of 1837,
with his wife and several other recruits to the mis-
sion, he left for Jamaica. Thus the American mis-
sion to the freed people of Jamaica was established.
Other Oberlin students followed, during the next fif-
teen years, until nearly forty in all, young men and
young women, had shared in the work of the mis-
sion. Several of these died in the field. Mr. Ingra-
ham, after four years of very exhausting labor, lived

1 36 0 BERLIN.

to reach this country, but died three days after land^
ing at New York. His young daughter was edu^
cated at Oberlin, and gave her life to the work which
her father had left, dying, as he did, soon after her re^
turn to this country. During the first few years of
the mission, the missionaries relied almost wholly
upon their own field for their support, and to a
considerable extent upon the work of their own
hands. They built their own mission houses and
school-houses and chapels. Some aid came to them
from the London Missionary Society, and from
school funds provided for the education of the freed-
men. After a time a "West India Committee" was
established at New York, to receive and forward
contributions to the work. One of this band, Rev.
James A. Preston, in 1841, having recently com-
pleted his theological course, wrote to the officers of
the " Union Missionary Society," then just organ-
ized at Hartford, Conn., asking an appointment for
himself and his wife to the mission in Jamaica, and
thus presented his case and expectations: " Money
we have not ; our friends who love Zion are poor;
the American and other education societies have
assisted in defraying the expenses of my education;
should I make application for aid in behalf of myself
and assistant — a female teacher, each of us having
the requisite recommendations and testimonials,
would the directors of your society — thanks to the
God of the oppressed that it has been formed — feel
disposed to grant us the money necessary for our
outfit and passage ? After that we will trust, under
God, to the generous gratitude which glows in the

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. 1 37

breast of the disenthralled. I should expect to
raise funds in this vicinity sufficient to defray our
expenses to New York." Preston was sent out
upon the conditions proposed, and after six years of
labor returned to this country to die. As the years
passed on it became evident that the work in Ja-
maica might properly be left to English Christians,
and no more reinforcements were sent to the Amer-
ican mission, and most of the missionaries that sur-
vived returned to this country. Two still cling to
the work to which they gave their lives more than
forty years ago : Rev. Julius O. Beardslee, of the
first college class that graduated at Oberlin ; and
Mrs. Seth B. Wolcott, whose husband was a gradu-
ate of 1 841. She buried her husband there in 1874,
and their son, Henry B. Wolcott, of the class of
1870, is carrying on the work which his father left.
The field upon which this hearty and exhausting la-
bor was expended, though in some aspects inviting,
was on the whole a hard one, exhibiting in a strange
combination the superstitions of African heathenism,
and the vices engendered by West Indian slavery.

In the year 1839, a Spanish ship, the Amistad,
came into port at New London, Conn., having on
board nearly fifty native Africans who had been
brought to Havana, in Cuba, and sold to two slave-
traders, to be transported to Principe, three hundred
miles distant. On the passage they were told by
the ship's cook that they were to be killed and eaten
on reaching Principe. This so excited them that
they rose upon the crew, killed the cook, put their
owners in irons, and dealt out to them bread and

I38 0 BERLIN.

water in such rations as they had received from
them, and ordered the pilot to take them to Africa.
He brought them to the American coast. Their
owners, backed by the Spanish Government, claimed
the Africans as slaves, and the government at Wash-
ington, with decided pro-slavery tendencies, was
ready and rather eager to favor the claim. But the
antislavery sentiment throughout the country was
intensely moved ; prominent men in New York and
Boston, and elsewhere, took up the case, and after a
series of trials in the United States courts, the last
at Washington, where the case of the captives was
powerfully supported by John Quincy Adams, they
were declared free. They were kidnapped Africans,
and not slaves.

This decision was awaited with intense interest,
and the news would naturally spread over the coun-
try with great rapidity. It came from Washington
to Oberlin in nine days. These Africans had been
in the country somewhat more than two years, while
their case was before the courts. They were kept in
jail, but Christian people were permitted to see them
and give them daily instruction. It was ascertained
that they were all from a limited region of West
Africa, called Mendi, about one hundred miles south
of Sierra Leone, and forty to sixty miles from the
coast, and six or seven degrees north of the equator.
They used different dialects of the same language,
and could understand one another. They seemed
a bright and amiable people, and the plan was
formed of making them the nucleus of a mission to
West Africa. As it was to be an antislavery mis-

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. 1 39

sion, Oberlin was naturally called on to furnish the
pioneer missionaries. James Steele, of the Theolog-
ical Class of 1840, was chosen as the leader of the
enterprise ; and Wm. Raymond, who had been drawn
from Amherst College to Oberlin by his antislavery
sympathies, and afterward to the fugitives in Can-
ada, was called as his associate. The company of
Africans, which numbered fifty-three when they were
shipped from Havana, had been reduced by death
to thirty-nine. With this company, Mr. Steele, Mr.
and Mrs. Raymond, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson — col-
ored— sailed from New York for Sierra Leone, Nov.
27, 1 841 ; and thus the Mendi Mission was begun.
A " Mendi Committee" was established at New
York, of which Lewis Tappan was treasurer, to so-
licit and appropriate funds for the mission.

The Mendians, when they left this country,
seemed interested in the establishment of the mis-
sion in their country ; but they lacked stability and
character, and their connection with the mission
was a doubtful advantage. Three or four of them
were steadfast and faithful to the missionaries, but
the rest fell back to their old heathen life upon
reaching the country. Mr. Steele was taken with
the fever at Sierra Leone, and was obliged to return
to this country; but Mr. Raymond went on to the
Mendi country, established the mission, and after
six years of exhausting but effective work, died at
Sierra Leone in the spring of 1848.

George Thompson, of Oberlin, who had learned to
endure hardness as a good soldier, in a mission of
five years in the Missouri State Prison, succeeded

140 0 BERLIN.

to Mr. Raymond's work, going out in April, 1848.
There followed him Dr. and Mrs. Tefft, Mr. and
Mrs. Arnold, and others, until fifteen in all had gone
from Oberlin to the Mendi Mission. Of these, eight
died at the mission, and the rest were compelled,
sooner or later, to return to this country for their
health. The site of the mission was unfortunate,
not being far enough interior to escape the fatal ma-
laria of the lowlands of the coast. The mission has
been carried on with more or less success until the
present time, but during the last twenty-five years
none have joined it from Oberlin. The precious
lives which were sacrificed there might seem too
great a price to pay for the work accomplished ; but
no word of regret was ever heard from those who
died, or from those who lived to labor. " Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abid-
eth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit."

The Indians of the great West early attracted the
attention of Oberlin students. As early as 1837 or
1838 several families left Oberlin with the thought
of missionary work among the Indians — some to
stop on this side of the Rocky Mountains and some
to pass beyond into Oregon. The whole United
States territory beyond was then Oregon, and the
Rocky Mountains themselves were more difficult to
reach than the heart of Africa to-day. Yet these
persons went out little knowing whither they went,
with limited means of their own, and with no ex-
pectation of aid from home. They were practical
men, capable of making homes for themselves in any

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. I4I

land that could sustain human life, and no special
apprehension was felt for them here. Mr. Finney
announced, about that time, that a man was not fit
for a missionary who could not " take an ear of corn
in his pocket and start for the Rocky Mountains."

The only ordained minister who struck out from
Oberlin on this distant mission was John S. Griffin,
of the Theological Class of 1838. He still survives, a
citizen and minister of Oregon.

These missionary families were able to do very
little for the Indians, because they could not follow
them in their wanderings ; but they were pioneers
in carrying Christian civilization to those remote
lands, and made at length comfortable homes for
themselves and their children.

In 1 841 two young men, students of Oberlin, took
appointments from the American Board, and went
with their wives as missionaries to the Cherokee
Nation, in the Indian Territory, where they spent
some years as teachers.

Early in 1843 several students had become inter-
ested in the Indians of the remote north-west — the
Ojibwas, about the head-waters of the Mississippi.
The American Board had a few missionaries in that
region, and these young men made application for
appointments to that mission. But the Board was
not then prepared to extend the work in that direc-
tion. Accordingly, on the 15th of June of that year,
at a meeting of the Western Reserve Association of
Congregational Churches, held at Akron, upon the
representation of these young men the "Western
Evangelical Missionary Society" was organized, and

142 OB E KLIN. '

within two weeks ten missionaries, men and women,
were on their way to their distant field. There is
probably no missionary field to-day, on the face of
the earth, more difficult to reach than this was at
the time. There were two different routes, present-
ing about equal difficulties. One was by the lakes
to the most western point of Lake Superior, known
as Fond du Lac, and then by an overland journey
of several weeks on a trail made by fur-traders,
through swamps and along streams and lakes, by
canoe and by portage, exposed to insatiate swarms
of mosquitos, not to speak of beasts of prey which
were abundant but far less formidable, to a group of
lakes in the northern part of what is now Minnesota,
— Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Red Lake, — around
which the Ojibwas were gathered. The other route
was by the Mississippi, which was reached either by
Cincinnati and the Ohio River, or by the lakes to
Chicago, and an overland journey to Galena. The
Mississippi was navigable, in some form, to Crow
Wing, a little below where the Northern Pacific Rail-
road now crosses. Then followed the tedious succes-
sion of swamps and lakes and streams and portages,
to the group of lakes already named. More than
twenty in all went out to this mission. The names
most naturally recalled, as connected with the mis-
sion, are Bardwell, Barnard, Wright, Spencer/ Lewis,
Adams, Coe, Fisher, and Johnson.

The work was carried forward through a period
of sixteen years, until 1859, when it was discon-
tinued in consequence of the breaking in of the ad-
vancing tide of emigration upon the region. The

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. 143

United States Government still provides for schools
and other work of civilization on the Indian reserva-
tions in the same region, and Rev. S. G. Wright,
one of the missionaries in the first company sent
out in 1843, is stn1l at work among the Indians at
his old station, Leech Lake.

The hardships of the work were more than usually
fall to the lot of missionaries. In that high latitude
the productive part of the season was brief, and the
winter was long and terrible. The Indians had no
permanent dwelling-place, but cultivated a little
land in one place, made sugar in another, and hunted
and fished in another; and their teachers were com-
pelled sometimes to make a journey of five hundred
miles in the winter, that they might not be separated
from their flock. Then the Western Evangelical
Missionary Society was often short of funds, and it
was very difficult and expensive to forward supplies
to the mission. Thus the missionaries were thrown
greatly upon their own resources. They must raise
their own provisions, saw their own lumber by hand,
build their own houses, and help the Indians do all
these things for themselves. Sometimes, to avert
starvation, they were obliged, in the dead of winter,
to make an expedition with oxen and sledges to the
Selkirk settlement, four hundred miles to the north.
They were obliged to see their provisions stolen and
their cattle killed by starving Indians, and some-
times to divide their last potatoes with them. Yet
there wrere compensations in the wonderful trans-
formations of character witnessed in individual cases,
numbers dying in hope in the new light which had

144 0 BERLIN.

come to their darkened souls, and in the general ad-
vancement toward a settled and civilized life.

Amid all their hardships the missionaries generally
came through without breaking down in health.
Mrs. Barnard died at her post, and Mrs. Spencer
was shot through the window of her cabin at night,
by a roving band of Indians on the war-path ; but
the work of her life is continued by her daughter,
Miss Charlotte D. Spencer, a missionary of the
American Board in Turkey, and her son, David B.
Spencer, a preacher of the Gospel in Ohio. Forty
years have passed since these missionaries went out
into the wilderness. Slavery has been blotted out
within that period, but the problem of civilizing the
Indians is still before us.

In 1846 a convention of the " Friends of Bible
Missions" met at Albany, N. Y., and organized the
" American Missionary Association," to take the
place and work of three organizations then existing
— the West Indian Committee of New York, the
Union Missionary Society of Hartford, and the
Western Evangelical Missionary Society of Ober-
lin. Mr. Lewis Tappan was elected treasurer of
the new society, and the office of corresponding sec-
retary was filled the next year by the appointment
of Prof. George Whipple, of Oberlin College, a mem-
ber of the first theological class from Lane. He
held the place until his death in 1876 — almost thirty
years.

In 1864, on account of the great extension of the
work of the society by reason of emancipation, Rev.
M. E. Strieby, of the college and theological classes

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. I45

of 1838 and 1 841 at Oberlin, pastor at the time at
Syracuse, N. Y., was elected as the associate of Mr.
Whipple, and under their joint administration the
great work in the Southern field has been carried
forward. Oberlin students have been connected
with this work in large numbers, as preachers, and
as teachers both in elementary schools in city and
country, and in the institutions for higher education,
such as Berea College, Ky. ; Fisk University, Nash-
ville, Tenn. ; Talladega College, Ala. ; Atlanta Uni-
versity, Ga. ; Straight University, New Orleans, La. ;
Emerson Institute, Mobile, Al. ; Howard University,
Washington, D. C. ; and other similar schools for the
colored people.

Such enterprises as these absorbed for many years
the missionary activity of Oberlin men and women ,
and it is only within the last few years that the work
of the American Board has come distinctly before
them in such a way as to enlist their interest and
command their service. During all the years there
have been individual cases of young men and young
women entering the service of the Board in different
foreign fields, as Turkey in Europe and in Asia,
India, Siam, China, Japan, South Africa, the Sand-
wich Islands, and Micronesia. Some, too, have en-
gaged in foreign missionary work in connection with
other societies in different parts of South America,
in Hayti, in India, and in Burmah.

Within the last two years there has been a re-
vival of interest among our students in the foreign
work, and six have gone to South Africa, four to
West Africa, two to India, and seven to China.

146 0 BERLIN.

These seven that have gone to China are the pio-
neers of what is called the " Oberlin China Band,"
to whom the province of Shansi has been assigned
by the Board as a special field.

The great body of the young men that went out
from Oberlin to preach in the early days went as
home missionaries — with this exception, that they
looked to no society to aid the churches in paying
their salaries. It was not difficult for them to find
needy churches to welcome them. Such churches
were numerous in Western New York, in Northern
Ohio, in Michigan, in Northern Illinois, and to some
extent in New England. A few of the stronger
churches were open to Oberlin ministers ; but for
the most part they were the weaker churches — such
as at that time, and at the present, would look for
home-missionary aid. But such aid came only
through the advice and recommendation of com-
mittees of associations and presbyteries — under the
Plan of Union, chiefly presbyteries ; and such was
the prevalent ignorance and apprehension in regard
to Oberlin men, that the most they could look for
was the privilege of working in some needy field
without molestation. Thus each man was obliged
to find a place for himself, and slowly secure recog-
nition. To give an illustration of the general sus-
picion : in 1842 the Presbytery of Richland, fifty
miles from Oberlin, sent up as an overture to the
Synod of Ohio the inquiry, " Is baptism, adminis-
tered by the preachers of the Oberlin Association,
to be regarded as valid ?" This inquiry was referred
to an able committee, who reported in substance

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY, 1 47

that " as the efficacy of Christian ordinances does
not depend on the character of those who adminis-
ter them, but on the grace of Christ," so their valid-
ity does not depend on the character of the admin-
istrator. The report went on to speak of the errors
of the Oberlin Association as exceedingly danger-
ous and corrupting, and urged that "these preach-
ers should not be received by the churches as ortho-
dox ministers, nor their members be admitted to
communion." An animated discussion upon this
report followed, but finally the opinion prevailed
" that Oberlinism was not yet sufficiently developed
to justify the synod in coming to a decision on this
important question," and the report was laid on the
table. At this time the Oberlin Evangelist had been
published four years, and Oberlin preachers and
teachers were well scattered over the State.

Under these conditions Oberlin men found their
work and waited for a brighter day. Some would
make their way with little difficulty, and soon found
a warm welcome — and this was the more frequent
result. Others were less favored, and had some-
what trying experiences before presbyteries and
councils. A year or two of self-denying and effi-
cient labor with some needy church, without aid, was
the usual probation to a recognized ministerial
standing. Thus the work of the early Oberlin
preachers was mainly missionary work in the weak
churches and in the newer regions, where there was
abundant room. Theological students going out to
preach during the long vacation, found no home-
missionary society to guide them to open doors and

148 OBERLIN.

to secure them compensation for the service. They
went where the preaching seemed to be needed,
and often returned to the seminary as empty-handed
as they went, except for the friendship and gratitude
of those to whom they had carried the word of the
Gospel. They were manual-labor students, and
could make their way through another year of study.
The situation had its advantages. The Oberlin man
secured a theological standing of his own — a birth-
right of liberty. No one was responsible for his or-
thodoxy. If he talked like the Westminster Confes-
sion, it was a surprise and a satisfaction. If he did
not, it was only what was to be expected, and at all
events he must have the privilege of talking in his
own way. This freedom may have come at a heavy
price, but it was worth the having.

In educational work there was a similar mission-
ary enterprise. The common schools of Ohio at
that time generally afforded two terms of instruc-
tion in the year, called the summer and the winter
school. In the more favored communities, these
continued four months each ; in others, but three.
The manual-labor arrangement at Oberlin made it
necessary that the college should continue in session
during the summer, and have its long vacation in
the winter. The winter schools through the coun-
try called for young men as teachers. Thus the
way opened for large numbers of the students to
find employment in teaching. The intense prejudice
against Oberlin, so widely diffused, was an obstacle
in the way ; but before this prejudice was fully estab-
lished, Oberlin teachers had made a reputation for

EARLY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY. 1 49

themselves and their successors, and a place from
which the growing prejudice could not exclude them.
There were dark places to which they found no ac-
cess. In only rare instances did they pass " Mason
and Dixon's Line ;" and students from other parts,
going over into Kentucky to find schools, were
sometimes confronted with an Oberlin catalogue,
which the people kept for their own protection.
The majority of Oberlin students, young men and
young women, during the first forty years, taught
in these schools more or less during their course.
At one time, when statistics were taken, it was
found that five hundred and thirty students went
out to teach in a single year. These teachers not
only earned the means to sustain themselves in
their study, and supplied the great want of compe-
tent teachers; they were also bearers of a whole-
some and elevating influence wherever they went,
inculcating the principles of temperance, morality,
and religion, and leaving a leaven of antislavery
sentiment in the communities which they visited.
They were also a recruiting force for the school from
which they went out ; and thus, through all the years
of obloquy and reproach, the number of students
was constantly sustained.

There were special educational enterprises of a
missionary character, in which the colony shared
with the college. The first of these was led by Mr.
Shipherd himself, who had laid the foundations
here, and had a longing to continue work of the
kind. In providing men for Oberlin, the church and

ISO OBERLIN.

the college, he had not been careful to reserve a
place for himself, and thus, after ten years, while
still a young man, he found himself, with improved
health, free from responsibility in the college ex-
cept as a trustee. Having occasion, in the au-
tumn of 1843, to Pass through the State of Michi-
gan, his mind occupied with the thought of another
Oberlin, he chanced upon a place in Eaton County
that impressed him as possibly the appointed field.
After spending the night at a cabin in the neighbor-
hood, he went on his way. On his return, intend-
ing to take a different road, by mistake he came
back to the same locality, and spent another night.
Returning to Oberlin, he gathered a few of the men
who had joined the Oberlin colony upon his invi-
tation, and proposed to them the new enterprise.
After some weeks of deliberation and prayer, in the
spring of 1844, Mr. Shipherd took his wife and six
boys into a wagon, with such household goods as
could be readily transported, with a young man or
two to drive his cows and sheep, and made his way
overland to the new wilderness home. A half-dozen
families from Oberlin followed, and two young men,
graduates of the preceding year, Reuben Hatch
and Oramel Hosford, joined them as teachers; and
thus the foundations of the town and the college of
Olivet, in Michigan, were laid.

The new settlement had its experiences of hard-
ship and trial. The breaking up of new lands, and
the flooding of other lands for a mill site, brought
sickness to many, especially to Mr. Shipherd and his

EARL Y MISSION A R V A CTIVIT Y. 1 5 I

family, and in September Mr. Shipherd died. It
was a sad blow to the enterprise, but there was
no looking back. The work went on, and after
many days, and through many trials, prosperity
came.

One of the young men especially, who left his
studies at Oberlin to help Mr. Shipherd and his
family on their journey, Albertus Green, from Lan-
caster, N.Y., proved himself a most enterprising and
efficient business manager ; and the little commun-
ity again and again assessed upon themselves the cost
of some new extension' or addition to the advantages
of the college, thus proved their vitality, and secured
the confidence of the people of the State. For
many years they drew their teachers almost wholly
from Oberlin, but at length they could call men from
Eastern colleges, and have now reached the stage
where they find satisfactory professors among their
own alumni.

A few families went out from Oberlin to South-
western Iowa, in 1848, with the purpose of estab-
lishing a Christian settlement and Christian institu-
tions in advance of the tide of emigration which was
turning in that direction. They first settled upon
the Missouri bottom, a few miles north of the State
line. They had no minister, and only at rare inter-
vals preaching of any kind ; but they maintained re-
ligious meetings and a Sabbath-school, organized a
temperance society, and sought the co-operation of
their neighbors. These neighbors were interested in
the new style of immigrants, and to express their

152 OBERLIK.

appreciation, called the little settlement by the river
side " Civil Bend."

These families drew others from Oberlin and the
neighborhood, and among them Rev. John Todd,
who had graduated at Oberlin, and was then pastor
of the church at Clarksfield, Huron Co. These
joined the colony in 185 1. Meanwhile it had been
discovered that the Missouri River bottom was too
uncertain and unstable a foundation for a town, and
the colony of Civil Bend found a new site fifteen
miles away, on the bluff, and called it Tabor. Here
the germ of Tabor College was planted, and has
proved its vitality by a slow but steady growth dur-
ing thirty years, under a heavy pressure of difficul-
ties and embarrassments. The faith and courage
and self-sacrifice of the surrounding community have
saved it in one crisis after another, until now the day
of its prosperity seems to have come. All these years
it has been a fountain of educational and spiritual
forces to a wide district of country. The families
that have sustained it, by their faith and their con-
tributions, were mainly of the original colony from
Oberlin, and the instructors that have labored in
hope, and given their lives to the work, have been
Oberlin graduates.

Oberlin students have aided in the establishment
of many other Western schools and colleges, among
them Hillsdale College, Michigan ; Ripon College,
Wisconsin; Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa; Drury
College, Springfield, Missouri; and Carleton College,
Northfield, Minnesota ; not to mention again the

EARL Y MISSION A R Y A CTI FIT Y. I 5 3

schools at the South already referred to. The im-
pulse of a new college, growing from small begin-
nings, has seemed to impress many Oberlin students,
and they have gone forth with the thought of under-
taking a similar enterprise. Such an impulse would
scarcely be felt among the students of an old and
fully equipped college. It comes where college-
building is a part of the education.

CHAPTER VII.

OBERLIN IN THE WAR.

THE conflict which Oberlin had waged with slav-
ery was essentially a moral one — a conflict of ideas
and principles. The purpose was to diffuse abroad
correct ideas as to the wrongfulness and unprofitable-
ness of slavery, in the full expectation that in the
end the truth would prevail, and slavery would give
way before it. The example of emancipation in the
West Indies was naturally accepted as an illustration
of what it was reasonable to expect. Thus, from
time to time, instances appeared in our own country
of individual slave-owners who had become dissatis-
fied with their position, and under great difficulties
and at great expense had set free their slaves. It
was thought that all that was necessary was to con-
tinue this moral pressure, and slavery would at length
yield to the power of truth. There was more or less
apprehension of violence and bloodshed, but it was
supposed that this would arise between the slaves
and their masters, in the form of insurrections and
repressions. No emancipation was thought to be
desirable which did not involve the consent and co-
operation of the holders of the slaves— not that the
rights of slaveholders were of any special force, but
because there could be no satisfactory result without
such co-operation.

OBERLIN IN THE WAR. 1 55

In the early days of the antislavery movement
there was a very sanguine expectation of rapid prog-
ress in this moral revolution, and the people of
Oberlin shared in the hope. Occasionally one would
make a journey through the Southern States, and
return with his views greatly changed as to the hope-
fulness of the prospect. The entire civilization of
the South rested on slavery, and all investigation or
inquiry or discussion upon the wrongfulness of the
system was effectually precluded. Such was the
impression from the inside view. But to the average
antislavery man it seemed impossible that slavery
should survive the growing agitation which would
at length bring to bear upon it the protest of the
civilized world. A conversation is recalled which
took place at an Oberlin tea-table, about the year
1840. A young man asked of Father Keep, who was
present, how long a time he thought would pass be-
fore slavery would come to an end. " About twenty
years," was his deliberate answer ; and no one pres-
ent seemed to think the expectation unreasonable.
It is true that after twenty years the end was just at
hand ; but to human apprehension it was no nearer
than twenty years before.

But while " the irrepressible conflict" was thus re-
garded as a moral one, it was not the teaching nor
the practice at Oberlin to omit any opportunity of
effective testimony or action against slavery, social
or political or religious. All that was required was
that the action should be in harmony with Christian
principle, and should have some probable bearing
upon the end to be attained. The monthly concert

156 OBERLIJV.

of prayer for the termination of slavery was main-
tained for many years. The fugitive from slavery
was sheltered, and helped on his way ; not only as a
service to him personally, but because such an escape
was believed to have a wholesome reaction upon
public sentiment at the North and at the South.
The idea of maintaining a testimony by abstaining
from the use of the products of slave-labor, such as
sugar and cotton, obtained only a slender and very
brief following. The more practical view was that
the money expended for the maintenance of the
principle could be used more wisely in direct action
upon public sentiment.

The extreme doctrine of " non-resistance," which
pervaded antislavery circles quite extensively, was
never prevalent at Oberlin. The right to repel by
force injustice and outrage, under proper conditions,
was vindicated in the Oberlin philosophy, and main-
tained as a practical principle ; but there was no ex-
pectation that the antislavery struggle would afford
occasion for any general application of the principle.
The most that was apprehended was that the violent
measures of slave-catchers, who invaded the com-
munity, might some time call for the defence of
property, or liberty, or life ; and a patrol was some-
times organized to guard the community from such
invasions^ A proposal to operate, in either an open
or clandestine way, upon slave territory, for the re-
lease of slaves, was never regarded with favor. The
effort would bring danger and violence, without use-
ful result.

When, in 1854, Congress declared the Missouri

OBERLIN IN THE WAR. !$7

Compromise act " inoperative and void," in relation
to Kansas and Nebraska, the people of Oberlin, in
common with many communities at the North, were
profoundly moved. They organized an emigrant-aid
society, and sent forward several companies of emi-
grants from Oberlin and the surrounding country, to
pre-empt Kansas as a free State. These emigrants
went prepared for the rough times of the " border-
ruffian" war that followed, and helped to organize
Kansas as a free State. Several Oberlin ministers
were on the ground through all the conflict, and
were sometimes driven from their homes and hunted
like wild beasts over the prairie. But the day was
won at length, and Kansas came forth one of the
most prosperous and progressive of the free States.

John Brown, of Harper's Ferry, was not a stranger
at Oberlin. His father was a trustee of the college
as early as 1835. His younger brothers and a sister
were students here, and he himself had rendered ser-
vice in the survey of lands belonging to the college
in Western Virginia. He was more or less associated
with Oberlin men in Kansas ; but his raid at Harper's
Ferry was as great a surprise to the people of Ober-
lin generally as to any other community in the land.
Two young colored men from Oberlin were with
Brown's company, one of whom, Leary, was killed in
the fight, and the other, John Copeland, died on the
gallows a few days after his leader.

It was not unnatural that, in pro-slavery circles,
Oberlin men should be suspected of complicity in
the affair at Harper's Ferry. The following extract
from The Pennsylvania)!, of Philadelphia, gives the

158 0 BERLIN.

average Democratic impression of that day: " Ober-
lin is located in the very heart of what may be called
' John Brown's tract,' where people are born aboli-
tionists, and where abolitionism is taught as the
'chief end of man,' and often put in practice. . . .
Oberlin is the nursery of just such men as John
Brown and his followers. With arithmetic is taught
the computation of the number of slaves and their
value per head ; with geography, territorial lines,
and those localities of slave territory supposed to be
favorable to emancipation ; with history, the chroni-
cles of the peculiar institution ; and with ethics and
philosophy, the ' higher law ' and resistance to Fed-
eral enactments. Here is where the younger Browns
obtain their conscientiousness in ultraisms, taught
from their cradle up, so that while they rob slave-
holders of their property, or commit murder for the
cause of freedom, they imagine that they are doing
God service."

The actual, responsible sentiment of Oberlin men
is expressed in the following extract from an editorial
in the Oberlin Evangelist upon the Harper's Ferry
tragedy: "We object to such intervention, not be-
cause the slave-power has any rights which man-
kind, white or black, are bound to respect, and not
therefore because it is properly a moral wrong to
deliver the oppressed from the grasp of the oppressor ;
but entirely for other reasons. We long to see
slavery abolished by peaceful means, and as a demand
of conscience, under the law of rightousness, which
is the law of God. Such a result would be at once
glorious to Christianity, and blessed to both slave-

OBERLIN IN THE WAR. 1 59

holders and slaves. It is especially because an armed
intervention frustrates this form of pacific, reforma-
tory agency, that we disapprove and deplore it.
Perhaps the day of hope in moral influence for the
abolition of slavery is past already ; we cannot tell.
If so, it is a satisfaction to us to be conscious of not
having unwisely precipitated its setting sun. If a
mad infatuation has fallen upon Southern mind, and
they will not hear the demands of justice, nor the
admonitions of kindness, let the responsibility rest
where it belongs. We would not have it so. ' We
have not desired the woful day, O Lord, thou
knowest.' "

But the woful day was hastening on, and Oberlin
was to have its full share of responsibility and sacri-
fice. Fort Sumter was surrendered April 13, 1861.
The call of the President for seventy-five thousand vol-
unteers followed, and the question of responding to
the call came before the students of Oberlin. Friday
evening, April 19, they held a meeting in the college
chapel, where members of the different classes ap-
pealed to their fellows to rally to the defence of the
Union, and committees were appointed to receive
the names of volunteers. The next evening a meet-
ing was called in the church, which was addressed by
Professor Monroe, who was at the time a member of
the Ohio Senate, and had returned from Columbus
to stir up the students and people of Oberlin to the
duty of the hour. The roll was laid upon the desk,
open to enlistments, and a large number rushed at
once upon the platform, and entered their names.
The company was half filled that evening, ten thou-

OBERLW.

sand dollars were pledged to furnish and sustain the
volunteers, and the people retired to ponder the ques-
tion of duty during the hours of the Sabbath. It
was a time of solemn and absorbing interest. In
many rooms there were gatherings for prayer during
the day, and there were many consecrations to the
service of God and the country. The term of en-
listment was for three months, but those who closed
their books, and turned from the recitation-room to
the tented field, in general regarded themselves as
enrolled for the war.

Numbers sent in their names before the close of
the Sabbath, lest there should be no room for them
if they waited until Monday. These were not mere
boys who acted from the impulse of the hour; they
were serious, mature young men, from all depart-
ments of the college, who had their cherished plans
of life, and had pursued them through years of
toil and study. They could not drop these plans,
distinctly apprehending that they might never re-
sume them, without earnest self-inquiry, and solemn
thought. Oberlin has witnessed during its history
many memorable Sabbaths, probably few that left a
deeper impression upon character than this.

Monday morning found one hundred and thirty
names enrolled, while it was supposed that only
eighty-one could be accepted. The faculty of the
college did not feel at liberty to encourage enlist-
ments. They maintained a conservative position,
restraining the ardor of the impulsive, and requir-
ing all under twenty-one years of age to wait the
approval of parents or guardians. It was soon as-

0 BERLIN IN THE WAR. l6l

certained that a single company of one hundred
members would be accepted from Oberlin, and this
was organized, and furnished with such an outfit as
could be provided in two days, in a country town.
For these two days the college exercises were sus-
pended, and the lecture-rooms were occupied with
groups of women, from the college and the town, in
the preparation of such articles as soldiers were sup-
posed to need, not omitting the sadly suggestive work
of scraping lint. Teachers of literature and science
were at a discount, and every old man who had seen
a squad of soldiers on the march or in bivouac was
brought to the front. Thus, with very meagre re-
sources, was commenced that education in the ideas
and facts of warfare, which was to continue through
a period of four years, until every detail of military
life and movement became familiar, even to children.
There was a vigorous and rapid growth in the
virtue of patriotism. Less than two years had
elapsed since Oberlin, with its antislavery ideas and
practices, had been in conflict with the general gov-
ernment, and numbers of citizens and students had
gone to prison under its authority. There had been
no enthusiasm for the flag: it was the symbol of op-
pression. An antislavery man had found it difficult,
for many years, to maintain his loyalty. He could
rejoice in his country, but his chief interest in the
government was in the hope and purpose that it
should one day be redeemed from its degradation.
Now all was changed. Lincoln, the representative of
freedom, was at the head, and slavery was in rebel-
lion against the government. Oberlin men did not

1 62 0 BERLIN.

stop to ascertain what was to be the outcome of the
war, in regard to slavery. They saw that, standing
with the government, they would be on the side of
liberty against slavery, and they could not hesitate.
Whatever the result, freedom must gain, and slavery
must lose, in the conflict. There was a very general
conviction that slavery must go down in the struggle,
whatever might be the ostensible policy of the gov-
ernment. Thus the loyalty of the people, which
had been suppressed or overborne for years, at once
found free scope, and the national flag was thrown
aloft. Oberlin fairly blossomed out with the stars
and stripes, and it was a great relief to know that
these were the symbols of righteousness and liberty,
and not of oppression.

Two days of preparation sufficed to provide the
young men their uniforms and general outfit, and on
Thursday, April 25th, the company were attended to
the railroad station by almost the entire population
of the town. Amid various demonstrations, and sad
farewells, they took the train for Cleveland, where
they went into Camp Taylor, and became Company
C, of the Seventh Regiment of Ohio Volunteer In-
fantry. Its captain, G. W. Shurtleff, was a member
of the theological school and tutor in Latin, and a
large majority of the members were students. A
few were young men from the town. The company
remained at Camp Taylor about ten days, waiting
for orders, and during this time received many visits
from friends at Oberlin. On the 5th of May, their
regiment was ordered to Camp Dennison, near Cin-
cinnati. Here they built their first barracks, and

OBERLIN IN THE WAR. 1 63

continued in drill and general discipline until the
26th of June. Here, too, they came to be known as
" the praying company." Each mess had its chaplain,
who was responsible for a service of daily family
worship. A daily prayer-meeting was established
by the company, usually held in the open spaces be-
tween the barracks, to which members of other com-
panies were frequently attracted. The daily family
service was maintained in most of the messes during
their entire connection with the army, a period of
more than three years. Such peculiarities exposed
them at first to sneering remark, implying an ex-
pectation that they would fail in the sterner work
of the soldier's life ; but after the first few marches
and the first battle, these remarks lost their point,
and were no longer heard.

The enlistment thus far was for three months — a
time scarcely sufficient, at the beginning of the war,
to bring untrained men into the field. At Camp
Dennison the question of enlistment for three years
was brought before the company, on the 23d of
May. If any of them had acted from impulse or
the spirit of adventure, the two months had given
them time to cool. The rough experience of the
camp had given them a better understanding of a
soldier's life, even without the sight of the battle-
field. A portion of the company decided that duty
did not call them to this further sacrifice ; but the
large majority accepted the call, and turned away
from their classes and their books, with little pros-
pect of ever returning to them. The company was
soon filled, by other volunteers, to a maximum, and

164 0 BERLIN.

retained the officers with which it was first organ-
ized.

It was natural that this first company sent out
should be followed with special interest by the peo-
ple of Oberlin. Other companies went out, and
many others, students and citizens, volunteered; but
Company C was the first contribution of Oberlin to
the war, and had the first experience of its hard-
ships.

The Seventh Ohio was ordered from Camp Den-
nison to Western Virginia on the 26th of June, and
then began, for Company C, the marches and the
battles, which continued until they were mustered
out of service, at Cleveland, just three years later.

The company first came under fire at Cross Lanes,
in Western Virginia, where the Seventh Regiment
was surprised by a large force of the enemy ; and for
a time Company C stood alone, unsupported, and
without any field officer, until they were at last com-
pelled to retreat, leaving five of their number se-
verely wounded on the field, two mortally wounded,
and two uninjured to look after them. In their re-
treat through the woods they fell in with a regiment
of the enemy, and the captain and those near the
head of the company, twenty-nine in all, were taken
prisoners. The rear of the company was saved
from this misfortune by the rather unmilitary order
of the lieutenant, E. H. Baker, " Skedaddle, boys."
Thus in the first encounter with the enemy the com-
pany was sadly broken, and was never entirely re-
united. The prisoners were first marched one hun-
dred miles with their elbows tied together behind

O BERLIN IN THE WAR. 1 65

their backs, and were then taken by rail to Rich-
mond, Va., where they were confined in the some-
what famous tobacco factory. The captain was
here separated from his company, and spent a year
in various Southern prisons, at Richmond, Salisbury,
Charleston, and Columbia. After exchange in
September, 1862, he was placed on the staff of Gen-
eral Wilcox, and passed through the battle of Fred-
ericksburg ; was soon after commissioned as Colonel
of the 5th U. S. Colored Troops, and fought with
them through the remainder of the war in the
trenches before Petersburg, in June, July, and Au-
gust, 1864, and at New Market, Va., where he lost
nearly half his regiment, and was himself severely
wounded ; and was honorably discharged at the close
of the war as brevet brigadier-general. Many of the
officers of his regiment were young men who had
been his friends and fellow-students at Oberlin.

The rest of the prisoners from Company C were
soon taken in open cars, through the whole length of
the Confederacy, to New Orleans, where they were
placed in the parish prison, without any care for their
clothing, and a very inadequate supply of food ; and
at night they were thrust together into a cell, without
blankets or any bedding, where only half could lie
down at once, while the other half sat upon the stone
floor, leaning against the wall, a small opening in the
door and a smaller opening in a flue in the wall,
being the only arrangements for ventilation. Their
Yankee ingenuity enabled them to add to their re-
sources by the manufacture of various trinkets, rings,
watch-chains, crosses, and pen-holders, from the bones

1 66 O BERLIN.

which came, in ample proportion, with their allow-
ance of meat. By the sale of these they supplied
their more pressing wants. The more studious
among them pursued their French, German, Greek,
or Theology. A " Union Lyceum" was organized,
a semi-monthly paper, " The Stars and Stripes,"
issued, and prayer-meetings and Bible-classes were
maintained. Two of their number died in this
prison, of typhoid fever. They remained there from
October, 1861, to February, 1862, about five months,
when they were removed to the prison at Salisbury,
N. C., where they were kept until near the end of
May ; when, after taking the oath not to bear arms
against the Confederacy until regularly exchanged,
they were sent down the Tar River under a flag of
truce, and were placed on board a Union steamer,
over which floated the Stars and Stripes. As they
stepped upon the deck it is reported that " they
danced and wept, and even kissed the mute folds
of those loved colors." Some of them were dis-
charged as not fit for further duty, and the rest,
after exchange, reported themselves to their com-
pany, and served out the three years of their enlist-
ment. Little was heard at Oberlin of these men
during their captivity. A few scraps of intelligence
came by roundabout methods, and occasionally a
letter on tissue paper came through, packed under the
covering of a brass button on the uniform of a soldier
who, for some reason, was sent through the lines.

The news of the battle and disaster at Cross
Lanes reached Oberlin in the midst of the com-
mencement exercises, and gave a sad interest to the

0 BERLIN IN THE WAR. \6j

occasion. The programme that day bore the names
of twenty-nine members of the Senior Class, nine of
them marked with a star referring to a marginal
note, " In the Federal Army." These nine received
their degree with the rest ; but Burford Jeakins was
lying, mortally wounded, on the field, and Wm. W.
Parmenter died soon after in the prison at New Or-
leans.

The portion of the company remaining from the
Cross Lanes disaster, more than two thirds of the
whole, soon rallied, reorganized by the appointment
of officers in the place of those lost, and had their
numbers at length replenished by the enlistment of
recruits, in part from Oberlin, and in part from other
sources.

During the remaining years of the war, they held on
their way, leaving their dead on many a hard-fought
field, marching twenty-four hundred miles, and car-
ried by rail and by steamer forty-eight hundred more.
Among their battle-fields are Winchester, Port Re-
public, Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Antietam,
Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge,
Ringgold, and Resaca. During these three years
one hundred and fifty students were at various
times members of Company C. Of these, only three
died from disease, two of the three from typhoid in
the prison at New Orleans. Twenty-eight fell in
battle, and fifteen were discharged on account of
serious wounds. That their sound principles and
temperate habits had much to do in securing their
freedom from disease, and their power of endurance,
there can be no reasonable question. Of their

1 68 OB E KLIN.

fidelity to the principles with which they enlisted,
Prof. J. M. Ellis, of the college, after a visit to the
camp, thus testified : " When their ranks had been
thinned by capture and death, and they had passed
through all the corrupting tendencies and tempta-
tions of their new life for a year, surrounded with
godless men and officers on every side, I saw them
in their tents in the heart of Virginia ; and nightly
from the six tents of Company C went up the voice
of song and of prayer, as they bowed themselves
around their family altars. It was a strange sound
in a camp of thirty thousand men. They were
known as the ' praying company,' and the fame of
their meetings was spread through all that army."

But Company C was not the only contribution
of Oberlin to the war. A company from Oberlin
joined the 41st O. V. I. ; and about the same time,
a considerable number of students and citizens
joined the Second Ohio Cavalry, and followed the
line of war from the Mississippi to the Indian Terri-
tory, and back through the whole length of the Con-
federacy to Danville, Va., and still back again to
the western border of Missouri. One of these, A.
B. Nettleton, rose from the rank of a private to the
command of his regiment, fought under Sheridan
the campaigns of the Shenandoah, and helped win
the final victory at Five Forks.

In 1862, another company went from Oberlin to
join the 103d O. V. I. Its captain, P. C. Hayes,
was a graduate of the college, and a member of the
Theological School. He soon rose to the command
of his regiment, and at length became Provost-Gen-

OB E KLIN IN THE WAR. 1 69

eral of Schofield's army, with his regiment as guard.
The same year, when Cincinnati was threatened by
Kirby Smith's army, and the " Squirrel Hunters"
were called out, our recitation-rooms were given up
almost wholly to the young women, while the young
men, upon a few hours' notice, rushed with such
arms and ammunition and provisions as they could
gather up, to the point of danger. When the dan-
ger was past they returned to resume their work.
For this service there was no compensation — only
the approval of the authorities of the State, and the
Squirrel Hunter's diploma. The same year, when
Washington was in danger, a company of "three-
months men" went from Oberlin directly to the
" front," held several posts to relieve veterans,
shared in various skirmishes, and at last were in-
volved in the surrender by Gen. Miles at Harper's
Ferry. In 1864, when Gen. Grant was concentrat-
ing all his forces upon Richmond, and Ohio sent,
within the space of two weeks, forty regiments of
" hundred-days men" into the field, Oberlin sent a
second " Company C " to the 150th Regiment ; and
though in general these short-time soldiers were
sent to garrison forts, that veterans might be sent
forward to the front, this company, occupying the
fortifications near Washington, had a taste of actual
warfare, in repelling Gen. Early's movement upon
the city.

Numbers of young men in the college went to
their homes in this and other States, and enlisted
there, to help make out the quotas for their own
towns. Thus it was difficult to determine how

I/O OB E RUN.

many of our students were in the army, or to follow
their fortunes. The alumni of the college, scattered
through the land, responded to the call of .the coun-
try in the same spirit as the undergraduates. They
went in command of companies and of regiments,
many of them as chaplains, and some as privates.
One, J. Dolson Cox, attained the rank of major-
general. He went into the army from the Ohio
Senate, at the first call, commissioned as brigadier-
general ; took charge of the Department of Western
Virginia, and held it to the Union ; led the Ninth
Army Corps and the Twenty-third with McClellan
and Burnside ; and fought through the Georgia and
Tennessee campaigns with Sherman and Thomas.

Taking graduates and undergraduates together, it
was estimated that not less than eight hundred and
fifty were in the army, at some time during the four
years. The annual attendance of students was re-
duced from thirteen hundred and thirteen in i860,
to eight hundred and fifty-nine in 1862 — a loss of
nearly thirty-five per cent. This loss, after the first
year of the war, was wholly on the part of the young
men. The number of young women was greater in
1864 than in i860, and for the first time in the his-
tory of the college they became the majority, while
before they had been less than two fifths of the
whole. The system of co-education thus helped to
keep the college in good working order during these
years, while so many young men were taking their
discipline in the army. Still several classes were
greatly demoralized, in the military sense of the
word, by the loss of nearly half their numbers.

OBERLIN IN THE WAR. I/I

In the first excitements and anxieties of the war,
the work of the class-room was maintained with
some difficulty. The telegraph or the morning
paper often brought news so distracting that neither
teachers nor pupils could give their full strength to
the work of the hour ; but at length all learned to
possess their souls in patience. Still there were
often sad interruptions, as when one who had fallen
was brought back to be buried from among us —
Danforth and Worcester from Winchester, Kenaston
from Gettysburg, Ells from Washington, and others
from other fields. There were also pleasant inter-
ruptions when paroled prisoners came back after a
year's captivity, almost as from the dead.

The recreations of the students took on an unusual
form. In the spring of 1861 they had built a gym-
nasium on the campus, by voluntary contributions,
and had called a teacher of gymnastics from the
East, to inaugurate the new dispensation. Great en-
thusiasm was shown in the exercises, but from the
day of the fall of Fort Sumter, the gymnasium was
deserted. The teacher returned to his own State to
enlist in the army, and the students organized com-
panies and practised the military drill instead of
gymnastics. The gymnasium was sometimes utilized
as an armory, but at length it became utterly deso-
late, and before the close of the war was removed
from the campus as a useless incumbrance. Two or
three entire generations of students passed away be-
fore any demand arose for a new gymnasium.

Of those who went forth from Oberlin to the war,
about one in ever)- ten never returned, and the

172 OBERLIN.

soldiers' monument, erected in 1870, bears the names
of one hundred citizens and students who fell on the
field, or died in prison or in hospital. A special sad-
ness attaches to the memory of those who fell at the
last hour, when all the dangers seemed to be past —
of Tenney, of the Second Ohio Cavalry, who was
killed by almost the last shell that exploded in the
neighborhood of Richmond ; and of Trembley, mem-
ber of Company C, who had fought in every battle,
except one, in which his regiment had been engaged,
and had suffered no harm. The time of his dis-
charge had come ; he had written to his mother to
dismiss her anxiety for him— that his fighting was
over and he would soon be with her. On the deck
of the steamer a few miles below Cincinnati his foot
slipped and he was drowned. His comrades re-
covered the body and bore it to his mother.

When the war was finished, all show of military
life at Oberlin disappeared. The experience of war
had been too real and serious to leave any taste for
its pastime or its pageantry. No military companies
survived among the students, and no military drill
was adopted as a college arrangement. The classes
gradually filled up, the advanced classes more slowly
than the others, and in 1873 the numbers in attend-
ance were greater than when the war began.

soldiers' monument, and old laboratory.

CHAPTER VIII.

SPECIAL FEATURES: CO-EDUCATION— MANUAL
LABOR — MUSIC.

There are several features in which Oberlin has
been distinguished from most of the older colleges,
peculiarities which, to some extent, were in the
original idea and plan, and which have given it a
degree of notoriety, and sometimes of reputation.
The most prominent of these is doubtless the princi-
ple and practice of

CO-EDUCATION.

This word seems to have come into use within the
last twenty years — an Americanism, made necessary
by the existence of a special feature in the later
American education, in which Oberlin was called to
lead the way. Co-education, as far as schools for
primary and secondary education are concerned, is
not a modern arrangement. The common-school of
New England has always brought boys and girls to-
gether, except to a limited extent in cities and larger
towns. The ordinary New England academy has
involved the same arrangement ; and it was almost
inevitable that the two original founders of Oberlin,
who had received their education in such an academy,
should embrace this arrangement in their ideal school.

174 0 BERLIN.

It does not appear that they regarded themselves
as introducing any innovation, or any questionable
principle. They did not realize that they were lay-
ing the foundations of a college. Mr. Stewart dis-
tinctly discarded the idea, and Mr. Shipherd seems
to have accepted it as an afterthought. Their
11 Collegiate Institute" grew into a college on their
hands, after the announcement had been made that
the doors should be open to young men and young
women. There seems to have been no discussion
of the question of introducing co-education into a
higher institution of learning. The founders and
colonists had many principles to discuss and settle,
but this was not one of them. The concentration
of spiritual and intellectual forces to move upon the
1 Mississippi Valley" necessarily carried with it the
education of men and women. To what extent
they should be brought together in this preparatory
education, was probably not clearly determined,
even in idea. The earliest circular thus sets forth
the plan : " The several departments of instruction
in the Institute are thus arranged : Preparatory or
Academic School ; Female Department ; Teachers'
Seminary ; Collegiate Department ; and Theological
Department." Then follows a brief description of
each department or school, giving the idea of the
female department thus : " The Female Department,
under the supervision of a lady, will furnish instruc
tion in the useful branches taught in the best female
seminaries; and its higher classes will be permitted
to enjoy the privileges of such professorships in the
Teachers', Collegiate, and Theological Departments,

CO- ED UCA 7 'ION. 1 7 5

as shall best suit their sex, and prospective employ-
ment." In a subsequent paragraph of the same cir-
cular, we read : " Pupils may enter the Female Semi-
nary for one term only, but none can enter the
higher departments without expressing the determi-
nation to pursue such a course as the Faculty shall

direct The Preparatory School, and the

Female Seminary, may be entered at any age above
eight. The Teachers' and Collegiate Departments
cannot be entered under fourteen." Such state-
ments manifestly contemplate a separate school for
girls, with the privilege of attending upon instruc-
tion in the other schools or departments. This con-
dition of things was never realized at Oberlin. What-
ever the intention in the planting, the growth never
brought out this form. There has been no female
department, except in relation to general manage-
ment and discipline, not as related to scholastic in-
struction. In a letter written in May, 1834, by Mrs.
M. P. Dascomb, the first principal of this depart-
ment, giving to her friends a view of things as she
found them at Oberlin, this sentence occurs: "I
spend three err four hours daily in hearing classes
recite. Mrs. Waldo also assists in school. The fe-
males are very interesting — most of them from other
States, and many from a distance. That depart-
ment is not yet distinct from the other." The same
state of things would be found by a visitor to-day.
The fact seems to be that women came in because
they belonged to the enterprise, as they come into
the household, with no special theoretical views on
the subject, but with a prevalent conviction that

176 O BERLIN.

every necessary adjustment could be made. The
founders certainly held no new or special views of
the rights or the sphere of woman : they only
sought for her such an education as should fit her
for highest usefulness in her own appropriate work.

Thus young women were invited to the school,
and came; and the required adjustments and ar-
rangements were made as the years went on. The
first year, out of one hundred and one pupils in
attendance, thirty-eight were young women ; and
these were of mature years and character. No
children, boys or girls, were received. Provision
was soon made by the community, in connection
with the common-school system of the State, for the
elementary education of their children. The pro-
portion of young women in attendance slowly ad-
vanced, being at the end of the first decade thirty-
seven per cent of the whole ; at the end of the
second, forty-three per cent; of the third — in the
midst of the war — fifty-one per cent ; of the fourth,
forty-seven per cent ; and of the fifth, fifty-three per
cent. No special educational arrangement was made,
the first year, for these young women, except the
appointment of a lady principal. Their instruction
was provided for in the general classes.

The announcement for this department in 1835
was as follows :

"Young ladies of good minds, unblemished mor-
als, and respectable attainments are received into
this department, and placed under the superintend-
ence of a judicious lady, whose duty it is to correct
their habits and mould the female character. They

CO-EDUCATION. 1 77

board at the public table and perform the labor of
the steward's department, together with the wash-
ing, ironing, and much of the sewing for the stu-
dents. They attend recitations with young gentle-
men in all the departments. Their rooms are en-
tirely separate from those of the other sex, and no
calls or visits in their respective apartments are at
all permitted.

" This department is now full, and many applicants
have been necessarily rejected. Such, therefore, as
may wish to enter hereafter, would do well to send
us their application, accompanied with the requisite
testimonials, and hear from us before they make the
journey in person."

For the years 1836-7, no change in the organiza-
tion of this department appears ; but in 1838 the
catalogue presents a " Ladies' Course, introduced
with a single sentence : " The following is the course
of study for young ladies." This course was based
upon a common-school education of that day, as a
preparation, and was extended through four years.
The course in the best female seminaries of the
period was for three years. This course was, for
the time, thorough in mathematics, natural science,
English literature, history, and philosophy, but
afforded no language, ancient or modern, except the
" Greek of the New Testament." The only strictly
" ornamental" branch was linear drawing. A sig-
nificant remark concludes the presentation: " When-
ever the course of study admits of it, the young
ladies attend the regular recitations of the College
Department." There were several studies not

I78 O BERLIN.

found in the College Course, which required separate
classes, but the tendency was, as a matter of econ-
omy, and of general wisdom, to diminish the num-
ber of separate classes, and bring the two courses
into harmony. " The Ladies' Course " stood thus
side by side with the College Course for many
years, modified and strengthened from year to year
as experience suggested, or the general advancement
of education in the country required. Greek was
made optional in 1839, but was frequently studied
by young women, and Latin and Hebrew as well.
Latin was introduced as a required study in 1849,
and French in 1852.

The principal of this department was reinforced
by a " Ladies' Board of Managers" in 1836, an insti-
tution which has continued from that time. This
Board has been made up of the lady principal and
several ladies of mature experience, wives of mem-
bers of the Faculty, or of others connected with the
management of the college. To them was com-
mitted the general ordering and discipline of the de-
partment, and the provision of such special instruc-
tion as might be necessary. This arrangement was
intended to secure to the young women the watch-
ful guardianship of ladies of experience and culture,
and save them, in any case of inquiry or personal
discipline, from the publicity of appearing before the
general Faculty of the college. The service of this
Board has been without compensation, and has un-
questionably contributed much to the success of the
" experiment " of co-education at Oberlin.

In 1837 four young women came forward with a

CO-ED UCA TION. I fc,

full preparation for college, having pursued Latin
and Greek in the various classes of the preparatory
department, and asked admission to the Freshman
Class, as candidates for graduation. Young women
had already been reciting with all the college classes,
and more or less in all the studies ; still, the idea of
their taking the full College Course, instead of the
course designed for them, raised a new question.
There was a little hesitation, but the application was
granted, and three of the four graduated in 1841 —
the first young women in this country to receive a
V degree in the arts. No announcement of this new
departure appears in the Catalogue. For the years
1838-9 the names of these young women appear
after the names of all others under a separate head-
ing, " College Course, Freshman Class." In 1839
their names and classification lead the names in the
Female Department, and in 1840 they are placed,
with the college classes to which they belong, after
•the names of the young men ; and this arrangement
has been retained until the present time. But to
guard against misapprehension as to the relations of
these young women the following remark was intro-
duced and kept standing in the Annual Catalogue
until 1855: " Young ladies in college are required
to conform to the general regulations of the Female
Department."

In 1847 two young women who had completed
their literary course applied for admission to the
Theological Course. They were received and regis-
tered as " resident graduates, pursuing the Theologi-
cal Course ;" and thus their names appear for three

180 0 BERLIN.

years. The next lady applicant for the Theological
Course appeared in 1873. She was received and
catalogued with her class.

When the first class of young women had com-
pleted the Ladies' Course, they were not brought be-
fore the great congregation at Commencement to
read their essays. They called together their friends,
by tickets of invitation, the evening before Com-
mencement, and read their essays in their own as-
sembly-room, receiving no diplomas. The two fol-
lowing years this anniversary was held in the college
chapel the evening before Commencement, and the
young ladies read before as large an assembly as the
chapel could contain. Theoretically this was the
Ladies' Anniversary and not a part of the Com-
mencement proper, which was held the next day in
the large tent. The next year, 1843, tne Commence-
ment was held in the large new church not yet
completed, and the young women of the Ladies'
Course read in the same church the preceding af-
ternoon, and received their diplomas. From this
time onward the anniversary of the Ladies' Depart-
ment was reckoned as a part of the Commencement,
but the arrangements were designed to indicate that
it was the day for the ladies specially. The plat-
form was occupied by the Ladies' Board of Manag-
ers, and the announcements were made by the lady
principal, the president of the college being at hand
to open with prayer and to present the diplomas.

When the first young women came to graduate,
having completed the full College Course, they natu-
rally felt some anxiety as to the place that should be

CO-ED UCA TION. 1 8 1

given them at Commencement. It was proposed to
them that they should read their essays on the pre-
ceding day, with the young women of the Ladies'
Course, it being announced that they had taken
the full College Course, and should come forward the
following day with the class to receive the degree.
This was not thought to provide a suitable discrimi-
nation, and to avoid the impropriety of having the
young ladies read from a platform arranged for the
speaking of young men, and filled with trustees and
professors and distinguished gentlemen visitors, the
essays of the lady college graduates were read by the
\j professor of rhetoric, the young women coming upon
the platform with their class at the close to receive
their diplomas. This arrangement was continued
eighteen years, but became less and less satisfactory,
and in 1859, f°r the ^rst time, the young women
were permitted to read their own essays with the
graduating class, and in 1874 a young lady graduate
who desired it, was permitted to speak instead of
reading an essay, and this liberty is still accorded.

In 1875 the " Ladies' Course," which had appeared
in the catalogue for forty years, was transformed
into the " Literary Course," and opened to young
men ; and the two courses thus presented became
parallel courses in the School of Philosophy and the
Arts — the Literary Course requiring one year of
preparation, and the Classical three years. Thus a
distinctive Ladies' Course disappears. For the Lit-
erary Course no degree has yet been granted. It
has been suggested that a year be added to the
preparation required, and that a degree be conferred.

1 82 O BERLIN.

Thus it appears that co-education at Oberlin was
not undertaken as a radical reform, but as a practi-
cal movement in harmony with the prevalent idea of
woman's work and sphere, and thus it has been car-
ried forward, carefully adjusting itself to the new
conditions, as they have arisen. There was no at-
tempt to put young men and young women upon
the same footing, regardless of their diverse natures
and relations/ While they were members of the
same class, and received, in general, the same in- .
struction, their duties were not identical. There
has been no effort to train young women as public
speakers. Declamations, orations, and extempora- >J
neous discussions have been required of young
men — not of young women. Their elocutionary
training has been in the direction of reading rather
than of speaking. Nor has there been an aim to
place young men and women upon the same footing
in regard to the general regulation of conduct. The
general judgment of the world has been accepted in
regard to the proprieties of womanly conduct, and
the college regulations have conformed to these
principles. That young women should be less con-
spicuous on the street, and in public generally, than
young men, is a requirement of general society, and r
the college regulations have recognized this fact.

The Ladies' Hall is the headquarters of the
Ladies' Department, furnishing private rooms for a
hundred young women who choose to occupy them,
also principal's office, reception rooms and parlors.
The dining-room of this hall furnishes seats at table
for nearly as many young men who choose to

CO-ED UCA T/ON. 1 8 3

take their meals there ; and thus they meet at meals
and recitations. Social calls upon these young
women arc in order during the early evening hour.
A large number of young women board in families
in the village, under the general supervision of the
lady principal, and young men are received to the
same families as boarders, with suitable arrangements
in regard to rooms. This has been the order from
the beginning.

In the organization of Literary Societies, the prin-
ciple of separation has always been maintained.
The young men have their own societies, and the
young women theirs ; and there has never appeared
any desire for a different arrangement. At least
this established order has been cheerfully accepted,

The aim has been to have the restrictions few and
simple, such as commend themselves to the good
sense of the reasonable and well-disposed, and to
depend greatly upon this good sense and reasonable-
ness ; but the point has never been reached where it
seemed wise or safe to dispense with all restrictions,
and leave the young people to their own free judg-
ment. The young need and expect such guidance.
Older people often need it, but there is no one to
afford it.

There is no place in these pages for an argument
upon the system. A historical statement of the ar-
rangements, and the results, is all that can be given.
The plan has been in operation fifty years, and the
work is as satisfactory and hopeful to-day as it has
ever been. It cannot be claimed that there have
been no anxieties connected .with the system, or

1 84 O BERLIN.

that there have not been occurrences, at rare inter-
vals, that were painful or even shocking. Such things
belong to human society in every form, and no ar-
rangement or vigilance can afford complete security.
Those who have been intrusted with this work, dur-
ing the years that are past, have been trained in the
best schools of the land, and are familar with the
results in these schools. They have sometimes
come to the work with some apprehension ; but with-
out exception, so far as is known, they have grown
into a hearty approval of the system.

It is not necessary to say that in scholarship the
young women have held an honorable place. When-
ever a comparison has been made, it has been found
that the young women are a little above the average
in regularity of attendance and in general scholar-
ship ; and that the best scholar, in any branch of
study, is just as likely to be a young woman as a
young man. There is a probability that intense com-
petition tells more upon the nervous endurance of
the young woman than of the young man, and that
anxieties and apprehensions in general take a stronger
hold. Some care is called for in these respects ; yet
it is not observable that a larger proportion of young
women, who enter upon a full course, are turned
aside, from failing health, than of young men.

During the history of the college, one hundred
and thirty-three young women have taken the full
College Course, of whom nineteen have died since
graduation — exactly one in seven. Seven hundred
and two have taken the Literary Course, of whom
ninety-five have died, or one in seven and four tenths.

CO- ED UCA TIOiV. 1 8 5

Eight hundred and fifty young men have graduated,
of whom one hundred and eight have died, or one
in seven and nine tenths. These proportions are
not sufficiently divergent to afford an argument un-
favorable to co-education, nor are the numbers suf-
ficiently large to establish a favorable conclusion.
The general impression of those who have watched
the experiment is a safer reliance.

That the system of co-education, as here pursued,
tends to bewilder young women with false ambi-
tions, or to draw them away from their proper work,
no indication whatever has appeared. Those edu-
cated here, like other educated women of the land,
are found filling the places which belong to such
women. For a large proportion, probably four fifths
of the whole, their work centres in the home life.
Others are filling responsible positions in this land
and abroad, doing a work which the world needs.
Amid all the changes in the outward form of the
work, which the fifty years have brought, the spirit
and aim of the young women gathered here remain
the same as in the early days.

In reviewing the early announcements and cata-
logues, among other changes which time has wrought,
a change of nomenclature is observable, to which
the adjustment is not yet complete. The English
use of the terms "lady" and " gentleman" is prevail-
ing over the American, in our land, and Oberlin is
in the transition state. Young ladies have become
young women ; but we still retain, as relics of the
early day, Ladies' Department, Ladies' Hall, Ladies'
Literary Society, and Ladies' Board of Managers.

1 86 O BERLIN.

Fifty years more may help us through this formal
inconsistency.

MANUAL LABOR.

The idea of Manual Labor as a feature in the life
of the student was not original with the founders of
Oberlin, nor peculiar to the Oberlin plan. Several
schools at the West founded fifty years ago, more
or less, undertook a provision for manual labor. In
Ohio, Western Reserve College, Marietta College,
Lane Theological Seminary, and other schools later
than these, adopted the arrangement. Oneida In-
stitute, of Central New York, from which quite a
number of students came to Oberlin, through Lane
Seminary and otherwise, was a manual-labor school ;
and doubtless schools still farther east had tried the
experiment. Probably in no case, except perhaps
a few of the distinctively agricultural or mechanical
schools of a later date, has there been so earnest
and thorough and persistent an effort to maintain
the system. The founders of Oberlin believed in
the arrangement as fully as they believed in any form
of education, and all their plans were formed in view
of it. The five hundred acres of land secured as a
gift from Messrs. Street & Hughes, of New Haven,
were not secured mainly for the sake of providing
ample grounds for the college site, nor for the pur-
pose of selling at a profit for the advantage of the
college. They were designed as a college farm, and
were given by the proprietors, as the deed states,
because of their " interest in a literary, manual-labor

MANUAL LABOR. 1 87

institution," to be held inalienably by the college.
Three hundred acres in addition were bought to en-
large the farm. The Circular issued in 1834, near
the close of the first year of the college work, con-
tains the following statement :

" Manual Labor Department. — This depart-
ment is considered indispensable to a complete edu-
cation. It is designed first to preserve the student's
health. For this purpose, all of both sexes, rich
and poor, are required to labor four hours daily.
There being an intimate sympathy between soul and
body, their labor promotes, as a second object, clear
and strong thought, with a happy moral tempera-
ment. A third object of this system is its pecuniary
advantage ; for while taking that exercise necessary
to health, a considerable portion of the student's ex-
penses may be defrayed. This system, as a fourth
object, aids essentially in forming habits of industry
and economy, and secures, as a fifth desideratum,
an acquaintance with common things. In a word, it
meets the wants of man as a compound being, and
prevents the common and amazing waste of money,
time, health, and life.

" To accomplish the grand objects of this depart-
ment, a farm of eight hundred acres has been secured,
some fifty of which are cleared and seeded ; other
clearing is in progress, and teams, cows, sheep, and
swine, with agricultural implements, have been pro-
cured according to present wants, to be increased as
necessity requires.

"This department is also furnished with a steam-

1 88 OBERLIN.

engine of twenty-five horse-power, which now pro-
pels a saw-mill, grist-mill, shingle and lath saw, and
turning-lathe, to which will be added other machinery
as experience shall prove expedient. One work-
shop is now erected and supplied with tools. Others
are to be added as necessity requires, and funds al-
low. The agricultural system is much more exten-
sive than the mechanical, because it is more condu-
cive to the student's health and support. A few
apprenticed and a few natural mechanics may be well
employed, but a large majority can work in mechan-
ism to but little pecuniary profit ; while on the farm
they can secure more health and earn much of their
support."

The first year four hours' daily labor was required
of every student. The manual-labor bell was rung
at one o'clock in the afternoon, and each young man
repaired to the field or the forest, the shop or the
mill, for his work, for which he received from four
to seven cents an hour, according to his efficiency or
his skill. The young women performed the domes-
tic labor in the boarding-hall, for which they received
three to four cents an hour. To equalize matters
somewhat, the price of board was seventy-five cents
a week for young women, and a dollar for young
men. Tuition was twelve dollars a year for young
women, and fifteen dollars for young men. Inciden-
tals were one dollar for young women, and two dol-
lars for young men.

The Circular of the first year adds, in a closing
paragraph: " The testimony of one year's trial is,

MANUAL LABOR. 1 89

that students, by four hours' daily labor, may pre-
serve their health, clear and invigorate their minds,
guard against morbid influences, earn their board,
and yet facilitate instead of retarding their progress
in scientific attainments. The most delinquent in
manual, have been the most deficient in mental
labor."

The second year the number of students was in-
creased nearly threefold, although " more than half
the applications for admission were refused." The
Circular for the year states that " students, both
male and female, and in all the departments, are ex-
pected to labor three hours daily." The abatement
in the hours of labor seems to have arisen from the
difficulty of providing remunerative labor for the in-
creasing numbers. There was no end of work to be
done — forests to clear away, stumps to eradicate,
fields to subdue, and buildings to erect, besides all
the work involved in feeding and caring for the hun-
dreds of students. But all this was expenditure
instead of income. There could be no profitable
agriculture until the roots of the original forest which
filled the soil had time to decay. Most of the labor
on the fields for some years must be in the shape of
permanent investment for remote returns ; and it
was labor not well adapted to young men and boys
who must work a few hours a day to pay for their
board. It was easy for the superintendent of man-
ual labor to measure off a half acre of forest for a
youth to fell the trees upon it, and cut them into
cord-wood. The work would be sufficient for the
season ; and if he were paid by the acre and the

I90 0 BERLIN.

cord, the college would be safe, but the student
would find the balance sadly against him ; while if he
were paid by the hour, even at the lowest price, the
college had little or nothing to show for its invest-
ment. Only inexhaustible resources on the part of
the college could solve the problem, and no such re
sources existed.

The founders were sanguine men, fruitful in de-
visings, and various schemes for furnishing remun-
erative labor to young men and women were tried.
Mr. Shipherd, in one of his letters, suggested spin-
ning and weaving for the girls ; but the factory era
was just at hand, and the spinning-wheel and the
family loom were giving way before the march of
civilization. A dream of the production and manu-
facture of silk in the country was producing some
excitement, and was taken up by the managers here.
Large quantities of mulberry trees were brought on
from the East, and the young men were excused
from study for a week to change the college farm
into a mulberry plantation. The unsubdued soil
and the unskilled labor combined, gave a discourag-
ing result. A few scattering trees survived, and
were visible for twenty years perhaps, but the col-
lege never produced a cocoon, even for the Cabinet.
A single family in the colony fed a few silk-worms
for a year or two. Other experiments were tried,
less expensive than this, but they brought no relief.
The college employed, at times, a general business
manager to bring things into shape, and again a
college farmer was appointed to organize and direct
the agricultural labor, but with the wisest arrange-

MANUAL LABOR. I9I

ment every bushel of corn produced cost twice the
market price. These experiments were repeated
through a series of years, in hope of a better result ;
but long before the effort was relinquished, the col-
lege ceased to require labor of the students, or even
to promise it to those who desired it. The Cata-
logue of 1838 says: " At present no pledge can be
given that the Institute will furnish labor to all the
students ; but hitherto nearly all have been able to
obtain employment from either the Institute or the
colonists. It is thought that the same facilities for
available labor will be continued." From that day
to this the college has held out no pledge to furnish
labor, and of course the requirement has never been
revived. In 1840 the announcement was as follows :
" The number of students is now so great that the
Institution cannot engage to furnish labor to all ; yet
it does employ many. In the village the demand
for labor both agricultural and mechanical is contin-
ually increasing, as improvements and wealth ad-
vance, and may be expected to keep pace with the
growing number of the students. The demand for
school-teachers during the winter vacation is con-
stantly beyond the means of supply, many applica-
tions being made to the Faculty which cannot be
met. Students in the advanced classes receive from
eighteen to twenty-six dollars per month and board."
The following was the announcement for 1850:
" The Institution cannot pledge itself to furnish labor
to all the students. However, diligent and faithful
young men can usually obtain sufficient employ-
ment fiom the Institution or from the inhabitants

192 0 BERLIN.

of the village. Many, by daily labor, have been
able to pay their board ; others have not been able
to do this ; while others still have paid their board,
washing, and room-rent. The long vacation gives
an opportunity to those who are qualified to engage
in teaching, by the avails of which many pay a large
part of their expenses."

In 185 1 a successful effort to raise an endowment,
by the sale of scholarships through Northern Ohio
and the adjacent regions, brought the college into
general notice, so that the number of students was
doubled in a single year. The attempt to maintain
a superintendent for the organization of the manual-
labor department had been abandoned some years
before, and students were left to find employment
for themselves as they were able. The college
farm had been temporarily leased in parcels, and
thus afforded some employment to diligent and
faithful young men. It was found by experience
that the best opportunity for students' labor was
afforded by families, in the care of yards and gar-
dens, in the preparation of fuel, and in other chores
which pertain to every household. It was ascer-
tained that a single family, as a rule, afforded as
much employment to students as several acres of
farm land, managed as the college had been able to
do it, and this without any expense or supervision
on the part of the college. After mature considera-
tion, and the best legal advice attainable, it was de-
cided to lease permanently the inalienable lands of
the college, with the provision that the leaseholders
should furnish a certain amount of labor to students,

MANUAL LABOR. 1 93

proportioned to the quantity of land held. Thus
the college farm was opened to occupation for resi-
dence, and is now covered by that part of the village
lying between Lorain and Morgan streets, and west
of Main Street. The care of the gardens and lawns
affords more and better employment for students
than the original farm could do ; and this employ-
ment is available to those who seek it, without any
attention on the part of the college.

This certainly is a wide departure from the origi-
nal idea of a manual-labor school. The college seal
still bears the motto, " Learning and Labor," with a
college building in the foreground, and in the dis-
tance a field of grain ; and it is the aim and purpose
of the managers to encourage all efforts at self-sup-
port among the students, and to maintain a public
sentiment in sympathy with the working life. The
school, in some of its arrangements, still bears the
impress of the original manual-labor plan. In the
higher departments all recitations and lectures are
in the forenoon ; so arranged originally to have the
afternoon open to manual labor. Monday, instead
of Saturday, is the open day of the week, because
Monday was the washing day in the early college
life, as in all well-ordered families. Until very re-
cently the long vacation was in the winter instead of
the summer, because summer rather than winter is
the time for manual labor. Another and stronger
reason finally operated to hold the long vacation to
the winter, namely, the opportunity it afforded for
school-teaching. These somewhat unusual arrange-
ments are relics of the manual-labor system.

194 OBERLIN.

There are obvious and inevitable difficulties con-
nected with the systematic provision of labor for
students. It is proposed as a means of self-support,
and probably could not be sustained without afford-
ing compensation to the student. But the necessary
expensiveness of the system more than absorbs the
profits. The investment of capital is essentially the
same for a student working three hours a day as for
an ordinary laborer. The expenditure for superin-
tendence is probably even greater, because the aver-
age student acquires no stability or momentum in
his work. Then, again, the work is far less effective
even for the time it continues, because the student
does not get fairly adjusted to his work before he
drops it for the day. He never gets fairly into the
harness; and finally, his heart is not in it: study is
his occupation, and the work is incidental. He can-
not throw himself into it, so as to become an effec-
tive laborer. It is not his life. There are exceptions
to this general fact, but not enough to affect the re-
sult. Hence student labor can never enter the mar-
ket in competition with ordinary labor. The reac-
tion of the labor upon the student would be most
wholesome, if a motive could be found to hold him
to it, without compensation in the form of wages.
This would involve the idea of making the labor a part
of the education, like practice in the gymnasium or
in the laboratory, a privilege for which the student
pays, instead of receiving pay ; and this is the prin-
ciple maintained in most industrial schools, but this
was not the thought of the founders of Oberlin.
The expectation which they cherished could not

MUSIC. I95

possibly be realized, but it was a part of the impulse
which sustained them in laying their foundations.
The building is, in this respect, different from their
planning, but in regard to its great purpose it proba-
bly transcends their expectations.

MUSIC.

The musical interest at Oberlin appeared early in
its history. The announcement of 1834, the first
exhibition of the plan and purpose, contains no
reference to the subject, and during the first year of
the college work there was no indication of special
interest in that direction. Deacon Turner, one of
the colonists, organized whatever musical talent the
community afforded, and led the singing in the Sab-
bath services.

The Catalogue of 1835 gives the name of Rev.
Elihu P. Ingersoll as " Professor of Sacred Music."
To the special work of his professorship, the over-
sight of the Preparatory Department was added.
The musical instruction, given at this time, was
limited to the training of classes in singing ; and this
instruction was free to students in all departments.
The new interest came in with the advent of Pro-
fessors Finney, Morgan, and Cowles. These men
were all passionately fond of music, and had strong
convictions of its value as a force in Christian educa-
tion, as well as of its importance as an element of
worship. Their views doubtless had much to do
with the growth of the interest at Oberlin.

Mr. Ingersoll was enthusiastic in his work, but he

ig6 O BERLIN.

occupied the position only a single year. The nar-
rowness of the resources of the college was doubtless
the reason for his retirement. Instruction in music
formed no definite part of the course, and when re-
trenchment must be made it naturally took effect
here. The Catalogue of 1836 gives a blank in place
of the name of the Professor of Sacred Music ; but
the same Catalogue states that " particular attention
will be paid to the cultivation of sacred music," and
this item is repeated from year to year. Some stu-
dent who had gifts in that direction was employed
to train classes in singing. In 1837 this work was
committed to George N. Allen, a student who had
recently entered the Junior Class from Western Re-
serve College. He was a young man from Boston,
a pupil of Lowell Mason, and had enjoyed the best
musical advantages of the time. His interest in
music was intense, and his Christian character was
as earnest and intense as his love of music. Indeed,
his Christian earnestness seemed to require music
for its best expression. The violin was his special
instrument, and he claimed no skill in the use of any
other; but his soul seemed to animate almost any
instrument that he touched. He continued teacher
of music in the college until 1841, when he was
elected Professor of Sacred Music, a position which
he held until 1864. In the Catalogue in which he
first appears as professor of music the following
statement is found : " During the past year increased
attention has been paid to the study of sacred music.
Systematic instruction has been given to upwards of
four hundred pupils, including a large class composed

MUSIC. 197

of young children of the citizens of the village."
There was a very general revival of interest in music,
and Professor Allen was the soul of it all. Yet the
work was not regarded as giving full employment to
a professor, or at least the compensation afforded
was only half a salary, even according to the Oberlin
standard. For the first two or three years the
superintendence of the Preparatory Department was
added to his duties, and after 1849, instruction in
Geology and Natural History. In the interval was
developed the germ of what has become, in these
latter days, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Among the hundreds of students gathered here,
nearly half of them young women, there would in-
evitably be a demand for instruction in instrumental
music, especially upon the piano. For this demand
the college made no provision. Indeed the trustees
had put on record a resolution, that it was " inex-
pedient for the college to afford instruction in piano
music." This demand Professor Allen provided for,
upon his own responsibility. He saw that instru-
ments were secured, either by purchasing them him-
self, or by encouraging others to purchase. He gave
lessons as far as his engagements would permit, and
provided competent teachers to meet the growing
demand. Thus the musical interest at Oberlin was
first organized.

Meantime the interests of sacred music were not
permitted to flag. For many years there was but a
single church organization, and the church choir was
enlarged to include almost all the vocal talent of the
college and the town. There was no organ, and the

I98 O BERLIN.

satisfactory substitutes for the organ, afforded in
these days, had not been invented. Professor Allen
trained and organized an orchestra of six or eight
performers, furnished with wind and stringed instru-
ments ; and when a double bass-viol was wanted, he
persuaded a young Scotchman of the Theological
Department, Alexander McKellar, to undertake its
manufacture — a feat which he accomplished with
entire success. When it seemed impossible to pro-
cure a sufficient number of copies of a piece of music
to supply the large choir, Professor Allen procured
dies, and stamped the music on blocks of cherry
wood, from which he printed the required number of
copies, and had the stereotype plates in reserve for
future use.

With such a choir and orchestra and other appli-
ances, Oberlin became distinguished for its music.
The church services, the Commencement exercises,
and the concert following, were all attractive by
reason of the music. It would not be easy to find
at any time a community in which music was more
effective and potent. The great sermons of the
Sabbath were a power, but they were powerfully
sustained and enforced by the music ; and Mr.
Finney often paused in his impassioned appeals to
give place to the winning, pleading strains of a
choir, in full sympathy with the solemn truth he was
urging.

In these days the little Oberlin hymn-book first
saw the light, under the title " Hymns for Social
Worship," compiled by Professor Allen. It em-
bodied about three hundred of the choicest hymns,

MUSIC. I99

in a compact little volume, which every student could
carry in his pocket without being burdened. It was
first issued in 1844, before the era of hymn and tune
books, and many editions followed through a period
of twenty-five years, until it took the form of the
little hymn and tune book which preceded our pres-
ent " Manual of Praise." A slight comparison will
show that the last is a growth from the first. The
original book of Professor Allen was not used for
Sabbath worship ; and the first Oberlin hymn and
tune book was not intended for such use. It was
employed temporarily, while committees of the Con-
gregational churches here were looking for a book
to recommend for adoption. The little book was
found so convenient that a proposal was made to en-
large it until it should contain a sufficient supply of
hymns and tunes for Sabbath use, and still be man-
ageable as a pocket hymn-book. Hence the " Manual
of Praise," compiled by Professors Mead and Rice —
a most satisfactory development.

Professor Allen was a composer, of some merit,
both of hymns and of music. The hymn beginning
" Must Jesus bear the cross alone?" which is attrib-
uted to him in many collections, was not so much
his by composition as discovery. He found it in
an old book, reading "Must Simon bear the cross
alone? " and made the change which greatly elevates
the hymn. As first published in his little books
it contained three stanzas; but in later editions a
stanza is introduced as the second, which begins
" Disowned on earth, 'mid griefs and cares." This
was his own composition, but the three slightly

200 OBEKLIN.

grandiloquent stanzas appended to the hymn in
" Songs for the Sanctuary" and some other collec-
tions, still attributed to G. N. Allen, are not in his
style, and must have some other origin. The tune
" Maitland," which accompanies the hymn in various
collections, and which in " Songs for the Sanctuary"
is given as anonymous, is Professor Allen's composi-
tion. This tune he claimed, and not the hymn.

Out of this early church choir, built up by Professor
Allen, grew the " Musical Union," which furnishes
yearly the grand concert. This concert is older than
the Musical Union, dating back probably to 1840.
The profits of these concerts were formerly devoted
to some public object. A large part of the cost of
the organ, secured by the efforts of Professor Allen,
for the First Church, was met in this way. The pres-
ent college chapel bell was thus paid for, and several
portraits of the older professors, hanging in the rooms
of the societies, and in the Library of Council Hall,
came by the same means. They were painted by
Alonzo Pease, the earliest Oberlin artist. In later
years the profits have been expended in giving some
special interest to the concert, and in advancing the
general interests of the Union.

Under Professor Allen's training there grew up at
Oberlin musicians of various merit, four of whom at
least call for special mention, as being sons of early
residents, and having obtained for themselves a re-
cognition in the Avorld. These are Smith N. Penfield,
Frederick H. Pease, John P. Morgan, and George
\V. Steele. Two of these, Messrs. Morgan and
Steele, after Professor Allen had been obliged to

MUSIC. 20 1

relinquish musical work, on account of his health,
organized in 1865 the " Oberlin Conservatory of
Music," to meet the demand for musical culture.
This school was in its organization independent of
the college, but was operated in full harmony with
it, and furnished the instruction of the choral classes
made free by the college to all its students. In
1867, Mr. Morgan having withdrawn from the Con-
servatory to engage in musical work in New York,
Mr. Steele was elected Professor of Music in the col-
lege, and the Conservatory was brought into connec-
tion with the college as one of its departments. In
1 87 1 Mr. Steele retired, and Fenelon B. Rice was
elected to the Professorship of Music, and made
Director of the Conservatory. These positions he
still holds.

The Conservatory has attained a high degree of
prosperity, having employed the past year thirteen
instructors, and having in attendance four hundred
and sixty-one pupils, of whom three hundred and ten
took music only. It still relies upon its own income,
having no endowments, and drawing nothing from
the funds of the college. So far it is a private insti-
tution. But its teachers are all appointed by the
trustees of the college, and its pupils are members
of the college, and under its regulations. In return
for its position and opportunity, the Conservatory
gives instruction to four choral classes weekly, which
are open without charge to all the students, directs
the singing at college prayers, and furnishes the
music for Commencement and other public occasions.

It thus appears that musical culture belongs his-

202 OBERLIN.

torically to the educational work of Oberlin, and
there is obvious and abundant reason for its continued
prosecution. Music is one of the great forces of
society, especially of Christian civilization. It must
not be left wholly in the hands of the irresponsible
and the worldly, to give it such direction as may
suit their tastes or interests. There must be Christian
schools of music, as well as of other forms of educa-
tion and culture ; and such schools must exist in our
own land, because the work is here, in large measure,
that needs to be done, and because it is necessary
that our musical culture should have a natural and
spontaneous growth, in harmony with American
character and life. It must be naturalized and
acclimated — not a mere exotic.

The spontaneous growth of this interest at Ober-
lin, is an indication of favorable conditions here.
These conditions belong to a large school of young
men and young women, among whom the natural
taste and gift for music may be found, and who
furnish an appreciative audience, as an inspiration.
The reaction, too, of the general educational spirit
upon the quality of the musical work will be most
helpful. It is a mistake to suppose that music alone
can yield substantial culture or character, cr that it
is sufficient to itself. Those who propose to work
effectively in this line need breadth and substance
of personal character — something more than mere
effervescence of sentiment. The neighborhood of
a university of general education, and especially of
Christian education, and of co-education, is the natural
place for a school of music. It is the desirable place

MUSIC. 203

to train those who shall go out as leaders of choirs
and organists in the churches, and teachers of music
in its various forms. The attention given to musical
culture at Oberlin is in the line of its original pur-
pose and plan ; and present indications point to this
as a part of its future work.

The trustees of the college have therefore taken
action, encouraging the endowment of the Conser-
vatory, and looking toward its permanent establish-
ment as a department of the college. The corner
lot, formerly occupied by President Mahan, and later
by Professor Morgan, has been secured for the Con-
servatory, and the original president's house now
echoes to the sound of instruments of music. There
is hope that another year may witness the erection
of a building adapted to the necessities of this grow-
ing college of music.

The school of music has already shown its value
as an educating force, operating upon the whole
body of students. It elevates their ideals, and fur-
nishes an atmosphere of culture, of which they par-
take almost unconsciously. Our music is also a
spiritual power which we could not spare. In the
churches, and in the college chapel, at daily prayers,
it lifts and inspires many souls. The service of
prayers in the chapel can never become wearisome
or monotonous while so many hundred voices, under
a skilful director, unite in the hymn of thanksgiving
or of supplication. There are few among teachers
or pupils who feel that they can afford to miss the
opportunity. It is a constant benediction on our
college life.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY AND MATERIAL DEVEL-
OPMENT OF THE COLLEGE AND THE COLONY.

The two founders of Oberlin, a home missionary
and a returned foreign missionary, were entirely des-
titute of means when they undertook the work.
Mr. Shipherd owned a small one-story house in
Elyria, and nothing more. Mr. Stewart had noth-
ing. No man of any means was associated with
them, and they knew of no one to whom they could
look. Their estimate of the funds required in such
an enterprise was very moderate, and this was their
encouragement. Mr. Shipherd, in a letter to his
parents, in which he lays the plan before them, says
that two thousand dollars would be required as an
outfit for his school. The light on this subject came
to them as they were able to bear it. There is a
tradition that Mr. Shipherd left Elyria, on his first
Eastern campaign, with three dollars in his pocket.

The first material contribution to the project was
the gift of five hundred acres of land by Messrs.
Street & Hughes, of New Haven, as a school farm.
At the same time, Mr. Shipherd contracted with
them for five thousand acres in addition, for his
colony, at a dollar and a half an acre, with the privi-
lege of selling it to colonists at an advance of a dol-
lar, thus securing five thousand dollars in addition,

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY. 205

pledged to the school. But this was balanced by a
pledge given by Mr. Shiphcrd to the colonists whom
he invited, that, early in the first summer, a steam
saw-mill should be in operation on the ground, and,
as soon as necessary, a grist-mill. Both were in
place, nearly at the time appointed, and both were
a source of expense to the college for years, until
they were at length sold to private parties. The in-
vestment would seem unwise, but it was doubtless
necessary. No one among the colonists had any
surplus capital for such an investment. In general
they had only means to pay for their land, to make
the journey, and build small houses for their families.
Beyond this they had to depend upon their own
labor to clear their lands and support their families,
until they could secure some returns from the soil.
There was no capitalist among them. The first col-
lections for the college came in the form of scholar-
ships. A contribution of one hundred and fifty dol-
lars secured the privilege of sending one student
perpetually to the school, to enjoy its manual labor
opportunities, and all other advantages ; but he must
pay for board and tuition their full cost. The schol-
arship payment was simply in the way of outfit, that
the facilities might be furnished by which the stu-
dent could work his way.

But the expenditures of the first year exhausted
all these funds. The erection of the college build-
ings, and the clearing of the farm, and the feeding
and teaching of the hundred students in return for
their work, called for increased supplies, and this
was the burden upon Mr. Shipherd's heart as he

206 OBERLIN.

made his way to Cincinnati in the autumn of 1834.
The financial result of that winter's campaign, which
terminated in New York, was the enlistment of the
interest of several leading merchants and business
men of the city in the Oberlin enterprise, especially
the two Tappans, Arthur and Lewis. Several of
these men united in a " Professorship Association,''
pledging the interest of eighty thousand dollars
yearly, to pay the salaries of eight professors at six
hundred dollars each. There was no definite pledge
to pay the principal at any particular time, but the
expectation was that this would finally be paid as a
permanent endowment. Besides this definite and
open pledge, Arthur Tappan privately assured Mr.
Finney that he should regard the entire surplus of
his income as devoted to the work ; and his income
at the time was about a hundred thousand dollars a
year. These financial arrangements seemed all that
could be desired. The professors elect came on, and
as their salaries were provided for, the charge for
tuition in the college classes was remitted. It was
retained in the other literary departments, because
there was no endowment for these. The great fire
in New York, in the autumn of 1835, crippled the
men of the Professorship Association, so that they
were not able to meet their pledges ; and the finan-
cial crash a year later completed the work. The
Professorship Association never came to the surface
again, and all the expectations based upon It fell to
the ground. But the announcement of free tuition
had been published, and students had come upon
the strength of the promise. The trustees did not

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY. ZOJ

see their way to restore the charge for tuition until
1843.

Vigorous efforts were made by the trustees to
meet the emergency arising from the failure in New
York, and during 1835-36 a subscription of nearly
a hundred thousand dollars was raised, to be paid in
five annual payments ; but the financial overturning
of 1837 swept it all away, so that only six thousand
dollars of the subscription could be collected. Dur-
ing the several years of financial depression that fol-
lowed, a very limited and precarious support was
secured to the professors, by constant collections
among the friends of the college scattered over the
country. There were many such friends, generally
of limited means, who stood by the work in these
years of trial. It was not a rare thing that the fam-
ilies of the professors were in doubt as to the neces-
saries of life, from day to day. The colonists were
in similar straits. The returns from their new farms
came in very slowly, and the supplies brought on
from the East were well exhausted. Thus in the
college and in the colony there was a significance,
not often realized, in the prayer " Give us day by
day our daily bread."

But with all this straitness there was no real de-
pression. The work grew in interest and hopeful-
ness from year to year, and the men who had it in
hand could not withdraw from the field. There
were places open to them where they could have
lived in comfort, but their work was here. Mr.
Josiah Chapin, of Providence, sent remittances to
Mr. Finney for some years, as regularly as if he

203 OBERLIN.

were under contract to pay his salary. Mr. Willard
Sears, of Boston, did the same thing; and afterward,
as prosperity in the stove business came to Mr. P. P.
Stewart, he provided similarly for Professor Mor-
gan. President Mahan was wont to spend his win-
ter vacations at the East, in preaching, and the gen-
erous gifts which he received in the work, and in
view of his position here, made up his salary. Other
professors were often obliged to sell their claims
upon the college in the form of " Institution Orders,"
to provide for pressing needs. Indeed, these orders
became a sort of colonial currency, passing at a dis-
count, like much other paper, but never so much de-
pressed as the " Greenbacks" in the war.

Thus, in spite of every effort, in 1839 tne college
was more than thirty thousand dollars in debt, and
bankruptcy threatened. There were no able friends
in this country to come to the rescue. In this crisis
two of the trustees, Father Keep, and Mr. William
Dawes, undertook a financial mission to England.
Prominent antislavery men in this country, like Mr.
Gerrit Smith, furnished them letters, and helped
them to an outfit. The application was not for en-
dowments, or money for current expenses, but for
help to pay the indebtedness. They prosecuted
their mission among the antislavery people of Eng-
land, especially those of the Society of Friends, to
whom the Oberlin enterprise commended itself on
account of its antislavery character, and its forward-
ness in the education of women. The fact that
Oberlin students were engaged in missionary work
among the frcedmen of Jamaica was a matter of in-

THE FIXANCIAL HISTORY. 2CO,

terest to many Christians of England. There was a
natural repugnance to give to an object so remote,
and in a foreign country; and the work was laborious
and slow. The gifts received ranged from a hun-
dred pounds, the largest, down to a few shillings.
The two men sent forth to this work held on their
way, without rest or diversion, walking by St. Paul's
from day to day, never taking time to enter, and
scarcely to look up at the majestic dome. They let
no opportunity or prospect pass. Having learned
that the Common Council of the City of London
held some funds in trust for charitable purposes,
they went before that large body of honorable citi-
zens and presented their cause; and what is even
more surprising, they came within a vote or two of
securing an appropriation.

Messrs. Keep and Dawes went out in the mid-
summer of 1839, ar)d returned near the close of
1840, after an absence of about eighteen months,
bringing with them, above all expenses, thirty thou-
sand dollars in money, sufficient "to meet the most
pressing liabilities of the institution, a large acces-
sion of books to the library, with good provisions for
philosophical and chemical apparatus." The old
compound microscope, until recently the only
microscope owned by the college, costing in its day
fifty guineas, and the smaller telescope, costing forty
guineas, were a part of this apparatus. Mr. Hamil-
ton Hill of London, a very genial Christian gentle-
men, with his family came with Messrs. Keep and
Dawes, having been invited to become secretary and

2IO OBERLIN.

treasurer of the college, a position which he held for
twenty-five years.

Relieved of the pressing debt, the college held on
its way the next ten years, dependent upon the
yearly gifts of its friends and making no progress
towards endowment. The gift of twenty thousand
acres of land in Western Virginia by Gerrit Smith
was a special encouragement, and this was its chief
immediate value. Ten thousand acres were at once
transferred to Arthur Tappan in payment of a loan
of five thousand dollars, and this was a substantial
benefit. The remaining ten thousand were twice
sold for twenty-five cents an acre, and in each
case came back upon the college. Counter claims
and hostile legislation embarrassed the title, and led
to years of litigation ; and now, after more than
forty years, there is a prospect that the college will
come through with a small balance on the right side.
This is but a single instance of hope deferred, of
which so many have occurred in the financial ex-
perience of fifty years.

Near the close of 1850 a movement was made to
secure an endowment of one hundred thousand dol-
lars by the sale of scholarships. The scholarships
were of three varieties, securing free tuition for one
student at a time, for six years, eighteen years, and
perpetually ; and costing severally twenty-five dol-
lars, fifty dollars, and one hundred dollars. The
money was not payable and the scholarship had no
force until the hundred thousand dollars were sub-
scribed. The plan was a popular one, and in a little
more than a year the amount was pledged ; twenty-

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY. 211

two thousand dollars being pledged in Oberlin, and
thirty-seven thousand in the county. By this move-
ment a fund of nearly ninety-five thousand dollars
-was raised and invested, of which the annual interest
received was about six thousand and seven hundred
dollars. This was the sole reliance for the payment
of the salaries of instructors. A professor's salary
was six hundred dollars.

An immediate effect of this endowment was that
the number of students was doubled, advancing in
a single year from five hundred and seventy to ten
hundred and twenty, and the next year to thirteen
hundred and five. This was encouraging generally,
and would have been helpful financially but for the
fact that the scholarships sold absorbed all the fees
for tuition. This, of course, was not unforeseen.
About fourteen hundred scholarships had been sold,
and these were transferable, so that no student ap-
peared at the office without a scholarship. The ex-
pense of instruction in the lower departments was
increased by this large increase of numbers ; but
most of the elementary teaching was done by stu-
dents from the higher classes at a small compensa-
tion. Thus the college was enabled to make ends
meet for several years with this very limited income.
It would be difficult to find an instance in the whole
history of education in the country, where so much
work has been done for so little pay.

Until after i860 nothing occurred in the results
of the scholarship system which had not been antici-
pated. It had been planned and administered with
the greatest care, to guard against any possible mis-

2 1 2 O BERLIN.

understanding on the part of purchasers of scholar-
ships, and the entire movement was a success. But
the war with its disturbance of values had not been
foreseen. A salary of six hundred dollars was
utterly insufficient, when the prices of all the neces-
saries of life had more than doubled. There was no
alternative : the old friends of the college must a^ain
be asked to come to the rescue. One of these, Mr.
J. P. Williston, of Northampton, Mass., added two
hundred dollars a year, for three years, to the salary
of every professor. Wm. C. Chapin, then of Law-
rence, Mass., pledged thirty thousand dollars to the
endowment of the college, and paid the interest on
it at seven and a half per cent during the whole
period of extravagant prices. Many others respond-
ed generously, and thus the crisis was met.

The scholarships, after the first six years of their
existence, began to be cancelled according to the
regularity with which they had been used, and after
eighteen years the next class began to disappear, and
before 1880 almost all the terminable scholarships
had been exhausted. There were nearly four hun-
dred perpetuals, and no lapse of time could annul
these. In many cases the holders of these have sur-
rendered them to the college as a free gift ; in other
cases they have reserved the right to send their own
children without a fee for tuition ; in still others
they have exchanged the perpetual for terminable
scholarships, and others have transferred them to
the college at a price. Thus, after more than thirty
years, the scholarship liabilities have been es-
sentially worked off, and only a few relics survive.

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY. 21 3

The undertaking was a formidable one, and any
school may well hesitate before venturing a repeti-
tion of the experiment. There have been disas-
trous failures in similar undertakings.

During all these years the endowment of the col-
lege has been slowly advancing. In 1867 the trus-
tees of the estate of Dr. Charles Avery, of Pittsburg,
Pa., transferred to the college twenty-five thousand
dollars on condition that free tuition should be fur-
nished perpetually to fifty needy and worthy colored
students who should apply for it. In 1870 Mr.
Charles H. Dickinson, of Fairport, N. Y., as almost
the last act of his life, gave ten thousand dollars
toward the endowment of the Theological Seminary.
In 1878-81 Miss Mary Holbrook, of Holbrook, Mass.
gave twenty-five thousand dollars for the endow-
ment of the Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric and
Pastoral Theology. In 1880 the college received
from Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of Maiden, Mass., fifty
thousand dollars towards endowment — the largest
single gift ever received. At the reunion of the
alumni of the college in 1875 a subscription was start-
ed for the endowment of the " Finney Professorship,"
and nearly twenty-five thousand dollars have come
into the treasury in connection with the movement.
Upon the retirement of Professors Morgan and Das-
comb in 1880, a second subscription among the
alumni was undertaken to provide a fund for their
retirement, which should ultimately constitute an
endowment of the Dascomb Professorship. About
fourteen thousand dollars have come in on this sub-
scription, and a balance of fourteen thousand re-

214 0 BERLIN.

mains to be collected. The " Graves Professorship"
of thirty thousand dollars was endowed in part by
the late R. R. Graves, of Morristown, New Jersey,
and has been completed by his brother and members
of his family. The present invested fund of the col-
lege above all liabilities, April, 1883, amounts to two
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Outstand-
ing pledges which should soon come in will bring the
amount up to four hundred and twenty-five thou-
sand; and if seventy-five thousand could be added the
present jubilee year it would complete a half million
of endowment. Compared with former straitness
this would seem an ample provision ; but it will be ob-
served that the income of this sum at six per cent.,
which is all that can be safely assumed, would be
but thirty thousand dollars — a very small reliance for
an institution carrying forward such a wide range of
educational wrork. The expenses of the college for
the last financial year were forty-eight thousand
seven hundred and nine dollars, and the receipts
from all sources, including donations, aside from
gifts for endowment, were fifteen dollars more than
the expenses. The salaries paid to regular profes-
sors are sixteen hundred and eighteen hundred dol-
lars. They were increased about two years ago by
the addition of two hundred dollars to each. A
serious financial depression during the current year
would decidedly darken the prospect of enlargement
of the endowment which is looked for in the pay-
ment of outstanding subscriptions, and in additional
subscriptions — an experience often encountered in
the history of the college.

THE FINANCIAL HISTORY. 21 5

The present year a movement has been inaugu-
rated by friends of the college and of Hon. James
Monroe, late Member of Congress, to raise thirty
thousand dollars for the endowment of a professor-
ship of political science and international law. The
movement has nearly reached its consummation.
Mr. Monroe was a professor in the college from
1848 to 1865, and his return will be occasion of great
satisfaction.

Various friends of the college have given notice
of help, to come when their estates shall be settled.
Others still have transferred to the college life-insur-
ance policies, either paid up or on which they pay
the premiums as they fall due — notably Mr. Wm. C.
Chapin, of Providence, R. I., for more than twenty-
seven thousand dollars, and Mr. Charles J. Hull of
Chicago, for nearly fifty thousand, to endow the
" Frederika Bremer Hull Professorship," in memory
of a daughter who graduated here. Still other
friends who wish finally to benefit the college, but
who need the avails of their property while they live,
and are willing to be free from the care of it, have
placed it in the college treasury as a gift, receiving
back a bond for an annuity equal to the interest of
the money given. The college holds at present an-
nuity funds invested as trust funds to the amount
of forty-five thousand dollars. The method is very
simple, and has proved very satisfactory, especially
to those to whom the care of their property is a
burden.

Little has been done in the accumulation of bene-
ficiary funds. The aggregate of these, in the form

2l6 OBERLIX.

of scholarships and other funds, amounts to some-
what more than seventeen thousand dollars. No
prize funds have ever been offered to the college.

The people of Oberlin, according to their means,
have shared generously in every movement to sus-
tain the college, sometimes contributing to endow-
ment, at other times to buildings, and again to cur-
rent expenses, to forestall the contraction of a debt.
In a crisis of the Theological Department, in 1868,
they came to the rescue with a subscription of
twenty thousand dollars for a new professorship,
and Rev. Hiram Mead was called. The tenth article
of the old Colonial Covenant provided for such co-
operation : " We will feel that the interests of the
Oberlin Institute are identified with ours, and do
what we can to extend its influence to our fallen
race."

COLLEGE BUILDINGS.

The first building erected for the college was
known as Oberlin Hall. It was built the first
summer, in 1833, by the colonists then on the
ground, and was completed, ready for the school,
Dec. 8. It was planned as a two-story building,
thirty-five by forty feet ; but before the roof-timbers
were prepared, it was decided to carry up about
two thirds of the width of the building into a third
story called " the attic," after the fashion of a mod-
ern grain elevator. This building contained all that
was known as Oberlin College, until the summer of
1S35. It embraced boarding-hall, chapel, meeting-
house, school-rooms, college office, professors' quar-

COLLEGE BULLDLNGS. 21 7

ters, and private rooms for about forty students.
The attic received twenty young men, with a room
for every two, affording space still for a corridor
four feet wide, and for a flight of stairs. The attic
gave way for a full story in 1838, and the building
still stands as private property on the south side of
College Street, nearly opposite the historical elm.
It is still useful, the lower stories being occupied for
business purposes, and the upper story recently as a
photograph gallery. It has endured well the rav-
ages of time, considering the difficulties under which
it was erected. The cellar walls and underpinning
were originally of heavy oak timbers, squared and
laid up like a block-house ; but stone walls took their
place when the road to the quarries in Amherst be-
came passable. It was in the little chapel of this
building that the students gathered to welcome Mr.
Finney, upon his first arrival in Oberlin, in 1835.

The second building was the carpenter's shop, a
two-story frame building, intended as a shop where
the students who had some mechanical skill should
perform their four hours of daily labor. It was
erected the first autumn or early winter, and stood
west of Oberlin Hall, nearly where the post-office
now is. It was one of the few buildings which were
painted red, according to the early vote of the colo-
nists. Upon the great accession in 1835, when room
was in such demand, the carpenters' benches were
turned out and the two stories were divided up, by
rough board partitions, into rooms for students, and
two lecture-rooms. One of these was occupied by
Dr. Dascomb as his first laboratory, and in the other

2 1 8 OBERLIN.

Mr. Finney began his theological lectures. It was
in front of this building, toward the south, that the
so-called burning of the classics took place. In 1836
the red shop was removed to the south end of the
west wing of the new boarding hall, and used as a
wood-house. It still exists as a dwelling-house in
Carpenter's Court, South Main Street.

The new boarding-hall, known afterward as the
Ladies' Hall, was begun in 1834, but not completed
until the autumn of 1835. It stood still west of the
red shop, on the north-east corner of the lot occu-
pied by the Second Church. The building was a
frame thirty-eight feet by eighty, and three stories
high, with a wing of two stories on each end extend-
ing toward the south. The whole force of young
men was turned out for three days to the raising of
the building, and a great part of the work, without
and within, was done by students. Stone for the
foundations was still too costly, and this large build-
ing was erected upon oak pillars, six or seven feet in
length, cut from the bodies of large trees, and sunk
into the ground to the depth of the cellar that was
to be. Afterward the earth was gradually excavated
from under the building, and the walls were put in
their place. The dining-room of this building ac-
commodated, according to the early ideas of room,
two hundred boarders, and there were rooms besides
for about sixty students. When first completed, the
upper story, and the west flights of stairs were given
up to young men, and the remainder of the build-
ing, excepting certain rights in the dining-room and
parlor, to the steward's family, and to young women.

FIRST LADIES HALL.

ladies' hall (new).

COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 219

In the simplicity of the first years, there was con-
structed, between the dining-room and the sitting-
room, a set of boxes, like large post-office boxes, a
hundred or more, shut in with doors on each side.
Each young man had his box assigned him, and in
it he deposited his bundle of linen for the laundry
every Monday morning, and found it there the next
Saturday evening. In the unfinished first story of
this building, Mr. Finney preached, more or less, dur-
ing his first summer in Oberlin. The building stood
until the completion of a second new Ladies' Hall.
It was then divided into parts and removed, and
now exists in the form of five dwelling-houses in
various parts of the town.

In May, 1835, Cincinnati Hall, already described,
was erected, to receive the students from Lane. It
was what might be called, in the dialect of the early
immigration, a college " shanty." It was occupied
two or three years, was afterward used as a carpen-
ter's shop, and wholly disappeared about 1840.

Another three days' raising occurred in the au-
tumn of 1835, when Colonial Hall was built. It
stood still west of the Ladies' Hall, on the corner oc-
cupied by the Soldiers' Monument — eighty feet from
east to west and forty feet wide, three stories in
height. It was named from the fact that the colo-
nists subscribed nearly half the cost of the building,
with the privilege of using the lower story, which
was to be the college chapel, for Sabbath services.
The upper stones were dormitories for young men,
twenty-two rooms, for two students each, with a sin-
gle recitation-room on the second floor. The chapel,

220 OBERLIN.

well packed, seated eight hundred. At first it was
sufficient for the Sabbath congregation, but before
the great church was built it was necessary at times
in the morning to hold a subsidiary service in the
Laboratory or the Music Hall. Colonial Hall stood
about thirty years, but after the building of the new
college chapel, in 1855, the old chapel was divided
into four recitation-rooms. Colonial Hall still exists
in the form of two unsightly dwelling-houses on
West Lorain Street.

Tappan Hall was begun in 1835, and with its walls
at about half height it stood through the winter,
and was completed in 1836 — a brick building, a hun-
dred and twelve feet by forty-two, and four stories
in height, containing a recitation-room in each cor-
ner of the first story, and about ninety single rooms
for students in the different stories. These rooms
were strikingly simple and uniform in their arrange-
ments, being each sixteen feet by eight, with a door
at one end and a window at the other. In one cor-
ner, near the door, was an open wardrobe, and in the
other a narrow bedstead. In a corner by the win-
dow was the stove and, the other side of the window,
the table. This was the ultimate idea, for the time,
of comfort and convenience in a college dormitory,
not only at Oberlin, but in the country generally.
Those were the favored ones who could establish a
claim upon Tappan Hall. The building was in-
tended primarily for the students of theology, and
after them for college students. The central tower
was originally in two sections, giving more than
twice the present height ; but in the judgment of

COLLEGE CHAPEL.

COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 221

some of the trustees it presented too much leverage
to the strong west wind, and in Mr. Shipherd's eyes
it was not according to the simplicity of " the pat-
tern shown in the Mount." The upper section was
therefore removed. The money for the building,
ten thousand dollars, was given by Arthur Tappan.
The building was placed in the centre of the college
square, with the intention of having all other college
buildings stand around the square, on different sides.
The plan would not have been a bad one if the cen-
tral building had been devoted wholly to public uses
and not a dormitory building. Tappan Hall is now
nearly fifty years old, and but for grave imperfec-
tions of constitution it might serve successive gener-
ations of students another fifty years. Many consul-
tations have been held over it, all ending in one con-
clusion— that it must soon be removed.

The year 1835 marked a building era for the col-
lege. Two dwelling-houses were erected this season
by the college — one for President Mahan, the other
for Professor Finney, two-story brick buildings, spa-
cious and comely, and well adapted to their uses,
standing one at the south-west and the other at the
north-west corner of the square, overlooking the
square, but not on it. The street which separated
them from the square was named Professor Street,
because it was the purpose to fill up the space be-
tween these two buildings with houses for other pro-
fessors. This policy was not carried out. It was
soon found desirable that, in a new and growing
place, the professors should build and own their own
dwellings, and thus at least have homes in their

222 OBERLW.

later years, if nothing more. Such a home is more
satisfactory and enjoyable than one owned by the
college, even if inferior in its appointments.

The style and expense of these college dwellings
gave rise to some discussion. A letter from Arthur
Tappan, received at this time, encouraged attention
to taste and comeliness in all the buildings and
grounds. A prominent and zealous colonist ad-
dressed a communication to the trustees, criticising
the lavish and unchristian expenditure, and giving it
as his opinion that three hundred dollars had been
wasted upon the buildings, out of regard to worldly
fashion. President Mahan occupied his house until
his retirement in 1850; President Finney his until
his death in 1875. Mr. Finney bought his house of
the college in 185 1, and Professor Morgan the
president's house a little later.

The last building to which the impulse of 1835
gave origin was Walton Hall, erected by the Pres-
byterian Church of Walton, N. Y. They sent sev-
eral of their young men to Oberlin, and to furnish
them quarters, they erected a two-story frame build-
ing, with twelve rooms, and placed it in charge of
one of their young men. To students from Walton
there was no rent. The building stood on South
Main Street, nearly opposite the site of the present
Union school-house. After fifteen years it became
the property of the college, and ten years later it
was sold to private parties, was changed into a furni-
ture shop, and finally was destroyed by fire.

In 1838 the building known in later times as the
" Old Laboratory" appeared — a brick building of one

COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 22$

story, about thirty feet by fifty in dimensions, and
containing a large lecture-room with rising seats and
arched ceiling, and skylight over the lecturer's table,
and all other appliances for the illustration of lec-
tures in chemistry. It was built according to Dr.
Dascomb's plans, embodying ideas which he ob-
tained as a student under Dr. Musseyat Dartmouth
and Professor Silliman at Yale. Adjoining the lec-
ture-room was a working room for the professor, and
a study. This gave to the professor of chemistry
independent quarters, in which he greatly rejoiced ;
and these rooms he occupied until the close of his
work — more than forty years. About fifteen years
ago the lecture-room was remodelled. The tiers of
elevated benches were removed, the elevation was
reduced, and the room was seated with chairs. The
building afforded no facilities for laboratory work
for students, and such work was not provided for,
at that time, in any American college. Upon the
appointment of Dr. Dascomb's successor, trained in
the modern methods of instruction, it became nec-
essary to remove the work in chemistry to another
building. Since that time the Old Laboratory has
been used as a general recitation-room.

When this laboratory was erected it occupied a
very retired position, in the rear of Colonial Hall;
but upon the removal of the old buildings, and the
laying out of " College Place," it became quite con-
spicuous. It must therefore yield to the demands
of progress, and in spite of all old associations, give
place to a more sightly structure. As these lines are
being penned it stands dismantled and ready to falL

224 OBERLM.

Those who shall gather at the jubilee, looking for
the old landmarks, will scarcely recognize the place
it occupied.

About this time the trustees voted to build a
dwelling-house for the college farmer, and commit-
ted the responsibility of the work to the farmer him-
self. He proceeded to erect a somewhat spacious
two-story frame house, of unpretending appearance,
but larger than the trustees had intended. The
farmer proposed to take the building as his own,
and complete it without charge to the college. The
proposition was accepted ; but the original farmer's
house, at the corner of Professor and Elm streets,
having undergone some changes, is now the home
of the college president.

The Music Hall was one of the subsidiary build-
ings of the early days, erected in 1842 — a frame build-
ing of one story, as large as the laboratory, giving
a pleasant audience-room for about two hundred
persons, with two entries at the front, and between
them a piano-room with elevated floor, shut off from
the audience-room by sliding doors. It stood on the
west side of Professor Street, in the open space
south of the present Ladies' Hall.

Professor Allen secured the erection of the build-
ing, by enlisting and uniting the interests of the
choir and of the college literary societies ; and it was
used by these different associations in common.
After eight or ten years, these bodies found more
desirable quarters, and the Music Hall came into
the entire possession of the college. It was then
divided by a partition across the building, and one

COLLEGE BULLDLXGS. 22$

part became the room for the recitations in Mathe-
matics and Natural Philosophy, and the other a room
for the young Cabinet of Natural History, of which
Professor Allen had laid the foundations. After fif-
teen or twenty years more, better rooms were pro-
vided for the Cabinet and the Philosophical Appa-
ratus, and the Music Hall was moved near to the
Ladies' Hall, and converted into a gymnasium for
the young women. Four years ago the fire went
through it, and the skeleton remaining was taken
down.

Twelve years elapsed after the building of the
Music Hall before any further building was under
taken. Then the college chapel was erected ; not
because the college had money to build, but because
it had become an absolute necessity. Nine hundred
students were present, and the old chapel could seat
only six hundred comfortably. At certain seasons
of the year, an overflow gathering for prayers had
been held in the Music Hall.

In 1854 the walls of the chapel were put up, and
the building was completed in 1855, at an entire cost
of eleven thousand dollars. The dimensions of the
building are fifty-six feet by ninety. It is built in
two stones of twelve feet and twenty-five, the upper
story being the audience-room. The first floor pro-
vided two offices, a library room, three lecture-rooms
for the Theological Department, and one Literary So-
ciety room. Two broad flights of stairs in the front
end led to the chapel. There was a gallery across
the end, over these stairs, and the stand was next to
the gallery between the doors leading from the entry

226 OBERLIN.

to the audience-room. Students coming in must
face the audience and pass the stand. There was
little temptation to tardiness, or to a disorderly exit.
The room was finished neatly with plain board
seats, of varnished whitewood, trimmed with black
walnut, arranged on a level, without any rise in the
floor. This made the seats in the remote part of the
room seventy-five feet from the stand undesirable
for those who were interested in the services. The
bell of the old chapel was at first placed in the cu-
pola, but soon a new bell was purchased from the
profits of a Commencement Concert, by the Musical
Union, and the old bell went to the Union school-
house.

Externally the chapel stands as it was first built ;
but the audience-room has been reconstructed, by
removing the gallery, placing the stand at the side,
and arranging the seats in elevated circular ranges,
so that every student has a good view of the stand.
Thus we have an admirable audience-room, of nine
hundred sittings. In these changes the stairs ap-
propriated to the young women were transferred
from the front to the rear. The cost of these
changes, amounting to twenty-three hundred dol-
lars, was met by a subscription by students and
Faculty. Still another change is thought of, involv-
ing about the same expense. It is desirable to have
more means of exit than the two broad flights of
stairs afford. A projection built upon the south
side, broad enough and deep enough for an organ
recess, and a flight of stairs on each side, would
bring a needed relief and improvement. The organ

COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 22J

has been purchased by the Director of the Conser-
vatory, but the recess for it is not provided for.

For many years a site had been reserved for a new
Ladies' Hall — the south-west corner at the intersec-
tion of College and Professor streets, but no practical
movement had been made until the Commence-
ment Reunion of i860. Then, just at the close of
the exercises, without previous consultation or ar-
rangement, after a stirring address from Governor
Dennison, who was present, in which he alluded to
the pressing necessity, the subscription began, and
at the close amounted to more than three thousand
dollars. This was enough to lay the foundations.
The contract for this part of the work was made as
soon as plans could be formed and approved, and
the material soon began to be collected. In the
spring of 1 861 the corner-stone was laid by Father
Keep, and the building of the foundation went on.
Before the work was half finished the war came, and
the contractor had difficulty in holding enough of
his men to complete the work. It was finished by
midsummer, and stood through two winters, before
any superstructure was reared upon it. The con-
tracts for materials were made, and mostly filled be-
fore the great rise in prices came. The walls were
built, and the roof added, in 1863 ; and the interior
was so far completed at the time of Commencement,
1865, that the alumni gathered in it for their re-
union dinner. The first cost of the building, includ-
ing the furniture for the private rooms, was about
forty thousand dollars — a small sum for a building of
such extent and value, but more than all the build-

228 OBERLIN.

ings previously erected by the college had cost. In
form, it is adjusted to the corner lot on which it
stands, with two similar fronts, of one hundred and
twenty-one feet each, at right angles to each
other, with a depth of fifty feet, and three stories in
height. It is a building of pleasing aspect and satis-
factory in its arrangements ; and, unless some catas-
trophe befalls it, it should serve its purpose for
generations to come. In 1880, after the burning of
the gymnasium, an addition was built, projecting
from the western extremity of the hall toward the
south, and carried up two stories. It provides a
fine gymnasium, several rooms needed for the
steward's department, and several additional rooms
for young women. The hall, as thus enlarged, pro-
vides, in its second and third stories, rooms for
about a hundred young women ; and on the first
floor, parlors, offices, society room, assembly room,
and reading-room, besides the rooms connected with
the boarding department, including a dining-room
for about two hundred boarders, with bake-room,
laundry, etc., in the basement.

In 1874 the college purchased of the Oberlin
School Board the old Union School-house, for five
thousand five hundred dollars. It was built on
ground rented to the district by the college, in close
proximity to the college grounds. The building
had become inadequate to the needs, and must
either be enlarged or given up. This building af-
forded six comfortable recitation-rooms, and a large
room in the third story for the Cabinet ; hence the
name Cabinet Hall. Upon the acquisition of this

COLLEGE BULLDLNGS. 229

building, the old recitation-rooms in Tappan Hall
were deserted, a large writing-room was constructed
by joining two of them, and the others were con-
verted into music-rooms. When a new Professor
of Chemistry was appointed in 1878, the lower floor
of Cabinet Hall was devoted to his uses, giving a
lecture-room, a working laboratory for students, with
all needed appliances, a special laboratory for the
professor, with balance-room and study adjoining.
The Professor of Geology and Natural History has
gradually extended his domain over the entire
second story of the building, securing lecture-room,
microscopical laboratory, general working room and
study, with his cabinets above. While the scientific
departments have been thus comfortably provided
for, other classes have been excluded, and the old
rooms in Tappan Hall, with some changes and re-
pairs, have been resorted to.

Before the purchase of the school -house, two
buildings for recitations and similar purposes had
already been erected on the college square. These
are called " French Hall " and " Society Hall." They
are brick, of two stories, alike in outward form, and
giving six comfortable rooms in each. They were
built in 1867-8. French Hall was named for the
late Mr. Charles French, of Cleveland, who gave five
thousand dollars toward the building, and Society
Hall took its name from the literary society and li-
brary-rooms which it contains. These buildings are
to-day the chief dependence of the college for gen-
eral recitation-rooms. French Hall contains four
lecture-rooms, a room for drawing, and rooms for

230 OBERLM.

the apparatus in the department of physics. Society
Hall gives three lecture-rooms, a college society
room, and library-rooms. The libraries have out-
grown the space devoted to them, and new books
can be placed on the shelves only by retiring old
ones. These two buildings are measurably con-
venient and satisfactory. They were planned for a
summer term instead of a winter term, and have
required some changes to adjust them to the new
order. They were built in costly times, and to-
gether involved an expenditure of nineteen thou-
sand dollars.

The idea of Council Hall, the elegant and com-
modious building of the Department of Theology,
was first practically indulged in 1869. Plans and a
location were agreed upon, and, during 187 1, about
five thousand dollars were secured for the object —
sufficient to lay the foundations. At the meeting of
the National Council of Congregational Churches,
held at Oberlin in November of that year, the corner-
stone was laid, and by vote of the Council the name
Council Hall was given for the building that was to
be. The foundation was completed in the summer
of 1872, and the walls and roof were completed
in 1873. The work went on as money could be
obtained. The generous friends at the East gave
liberally, and, to complete the interior, the larger
Congregational churches of Ohio came forward with
subscriptions varying from two hundred to two
thousand dollars each, the name of such church
being placed over the room for which its subscrip-
tion provided. The building, not fully completed,

COUNCIL HALL.

COLLEGE BUILDINGS. 23 1

was dedicated at Commencement, 1874, and was
opened for use the following autumn. Its front is
one hundred and one feet, and its depth seventy
feet. The height is four stories, including the Man-
sard. Its cost, including the furniture of public and
private rooms, was about sixty-eight thousand dol-
lars. It provides two lecture-rooms, a chapel seat-
ing three hundred, and divisible by a lifting partition
into two lecture-rooms, a reading-room and reference
library, and private rooms for sixty students. It is
devoted exclusively to the Theological School, ex-
cept an occasional, use of the chapel for social
meetings.

To provide board at the least possible cost for
those who need such provision, the building on
Main Street, opposite the north-east corner of the
college square, was purchased in 1880, and fitted up
for a boarding-hall. It has cost, including an addi-
tional lot, five thousand dollars, and has been named
"Stewart Hall," in memory of the early founder, and
for the maintenance of his principles of economy.
The house is furnished without rent to the matron,
and she receives young women for board and room
at two dollars a week, and young men, at table only,
for two dollars. This goes beyond the early times
in cheapness, when, with flour at two dollars and a
half a barrel, beef two and a half cents a pound,
and butter seven cents, students paid one dollar a
week for their seat at table. The house receives
sixty boarders, and is always full.

This completes the list of the buildings erected
for the college. The aggregate first cost of them

232 OB E RUN.

all, not including the dwelling-houses, is about one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The cost of
the buildings still in use was one hundred and sixty-
three thousand.

The only additional building, in immediate pros-
pect, is that for which the old laboratory yields its
place. It is to furnish, in its first story, a young
ladies' assembly room of three hundred and fifty
sittings ; and in the second, two rooms for the lit-
erary societies of the young women. It is planned
to cost eleven thousand dollars, of which the so-
cieties have raised three thousand, and Miss Susan
M. Sturges, of Mansfield, gives five thousand.

The pressing needs to be provided for in future
buildings, are ten more recitation and lecture rooms,
rooms for instruction in drawing and art, libraries
and cabinets, a building for the Conservatory of
Music, the beginning of an art-gallery, and probably
a dormitory building for young men, which shall
provide for the more advanced college students, as
Council Hall for the theological.

LIBRARY, CABINET, AND APPARATUS.

The library of the college has had a slow growth.
It was begun the first year by the collection of such
books as could be spared from the libraries of New
England ministers, and from time to time received
accessions of this kind, with an occasional gift of
fresher books from some publisher. The deputa-
tion to England brought back books of some value,
and an occasional gift for the purpose has helped in

LIBRA R V, CA BINE T, A ND A PPA RATUS. 233

the growth. Originally a small fee was charged for
the use of the library, and a majority of students
saved the fee. For the last fifteen years every stu-
dent has paid about a dollar a year for the library,
charged in his bill of incidentals. This arrangement
has promoted both the use of the library and its
growth. A fee for special or extra examinations
has also been charged, and this is added to the li-
brary fund. From these funds the librarian's salary
is paid, the library is kept in working order, and a
few hundred dollars yearly are appropriated for new
books.

The literary societies of the different departments
are united in a Union Library Association, to build
up a common library. Their funds come from in-
itiation fees, from an annual tax, and from the
proceeds of a course of lectures and literary enter-
tainments. Thus they add to their library several
hundred volumes a year. The college library con-
tains eleven or twelve thousand volumes, and the
societies' library five thousand, and the two are so
arranged as to present the appearance of a single
library.

The theological reference library in Council Hall
is still small, containing about sixteen hundred vol-
umes. No permanent fund is connected with any
of the libraries, and the largest gift ever received
was five hundred dollars. The present need is more
books and more room for them.

The Cabinet first took form under the hands of
Professor Allen. He was himself a diligent col-
lector, and he increased his personal collections by

234 OBERLffi.

exchanges. He imparted something of his own
enthusiasm to numbers of his pupils, and as they
scattered abroad they remembered the Cabinet.
Missionaries in the Micronesian and Hawaiian
Islands, in Western and South-eastern Africa, in
India, China, and Japan, have sent collections illus-
trating the natural and the social history of these
diverse regions. Professor Allen himself spent six
months in Jamaica as a collector, and the Cabinet
shows the results in almost every department. At
rare intervals a special appropriation has been made
from the college funds to secure some rare speci-
men, and at still rarer intervals gifts in money have
been received. Thus the cabinet has been constant-
ly improving until it serves very satisfactorily in the
illustration of the different departments of Natural
Science. More space is required for the display of
the collection, and a fire-proof building for its pro-
tection.

The chemical laboratory is reasonably well pro-
vided with apparatus. Facilities are afforded for
whatever work the professor or the student needs to
do. The rooms themselves are by no means ideal,
but they serve all essential purposes. The micro-
scopical laboratory is a recent institution, the instru-
ments having been furnished by a gift of a thousand
dollars for the purpose, from Mr. David Whitcomb,
of Worcester, Mass. The arrangements are sufficient
for a class of about twenty students at a time. This
laboratory work is elective in the course, and the
provision is at present adequate to the demand.
In the department of Natural Philosophy, especially

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 235

in the direction of dynamic electrictity, valuable ad-
ditions to the apparatus have been made by Profes-
sor Elisha Gray, in connection with his course of
lectures. The latest results of experiment and dis-
covery are very fully illustrated. An observatory
moderately furnished has long been a need in the
line of astronomical study. A refractor with seven-
inch aperture was presented to the college, some
years since, by Mr. Kenyon Cox, of New York; but
for want of a place where it can be permanently
mounted and safely kept, its use has been very
limited. The time for these various improvements
ought not to be far away. For several years past
the manifest duty has been to seek for enlarged en-
dowment, and these subordinate necessities have
been studiously kept out of sight.

GROWTH OF THE COLONY.

The fifty years have yielded some results in the
growth of the town as well as of the college. The
first streets built up in the settlement were those
which surround the college park ; and for many
years almost all the houses were on these four streets,
Main and Professor Streets running north and
south, and College and Lorain Streets east and
west. The centre of the Oberlin tract is at the
north-east corner of the college park; but the first
dwelling and the first college building were placed
at the south-east corner, and this naturally deter-
mined the centre of the settlement. Again the first
mills were placed still farther south, where Main

236

OBERLIN.

Street crosses Plum Creek, and thus the settlement
was directed toward the south, a tendency which
was never overcome. The position of the railroad
station, in later times, has increased and confirmed
the tendency. Other streets which were opened and
occupied in the early times were Pleasant, Morgan
and Mill Streets. All these were laid out and more
or less occupied the first year or two, but were after-
ward much extended.

The only road which at first Mas vital to the con-
vemence of the colony was the road to Elyria and
upon this efforts were first expended. Citizens and
students and professors subscribed labor, and per-
formed the work in person. This road took the
direction of College Street, intersecting Lorain
Street, a mile and a half east. The plan first adopted
in road-building was to cover the road-bed with a
cross layer of rails split from the oak and ash trees
along the way, and cover these rails with a top-
dressing of clay and soil, obtained by digging a
ditch on each side. While the rails continued
sound, the road was quite a success, but as they
decayed, the fragments must be taken out, and the
original clay be made the foundation. Another
ntty years may possibly disclose the art of con-
structing, on such a foundation, roads which shall
be comfortable for every season of the year

The streets and sidewalks of the village have
formed a formidable part of this road problem.
I he first sidewalks were constructed of white-wood
plank, three inches in thickness, laid end to end
lengthwise of the walk, indicating the superabun-

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 237

dance of timber. After a few years it was ascertained
that the excessive thickness of the plank, and the
contact of the ends, both tended to hasten decay.
Thereafter the plank was made an inch and a half
in thickness, and laid crosswise ; and most of our
walks are still thus constructed — pine lumber hav-
ing taken the place of the white-wood and the oak.
Sandstone flagging from Berea and Amherst, since
the construction of the railroad, has been extensively
introduced. The first attempt at a more satisfactory
roadway for the streets was a heavy oak plank cov-
ering on Main Street, from College Street to the
railroad station. Like all plank roads it was a com-
fort at the outset, and a nuisance at the end. The
next experiment was a layer of broken sandstone.
It was soon ground into sand, and sunk out of sight
in the clay. The latest method is a pavement of
blocks of sandstone eight inches in thickness, with
eight or ten square feet of surface. These blocks
keep their place, and promise durability. Stone
suitable for a macadamized road-bed is too distant
and costly to be available. Such mention of the
work of road-building will not seem out of place
to those who bore the burdens of the early days.

The great solution of the road problem for Ober-
lin was found at length in the construction of the
Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad, in 1852.
The number of students in the college had been
doubled by the scholarship endowment, and it was
a formidable undertaking for them to get into
town at the beginning of the Spring term, and out
of town at the close of the Fall term. The Cleve-

238 0 BERLIN.

land and Columbus road had been built a year or
two before, with a station at Wellington, nine miles
from Oberlin. This was a great relief, but the road
to Wellington was often intolerable. When the
proposal was made of a railroad from Cleveland to
Toledo, the people of Oberlin were awake to the
opportunity. They sent out surveying parties east
and west, to show that the road from Grafton to
Norwalk could easily be made to pass through Ober-
lin. The township subscribed twenty thousand
dollars to the stock, and the citizens of Oberlin in-
dividually as much more. Many who subscribed
did it simply to promote a necessary public enter-
prise, never expecting to see their money again.
The road was deflected from a straight line suffi-
ciently to touch Oberlin, and even proved a success
financially, so that the original stockholders received
their own with usury. It is now the Southern Di-
vision of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern.
After some years the people of Elyria, on the North-
ern Division, secured the transfer of the section be-
tween Oberlin and Grafton, so that the intersection
should be at Elyria, and thus the journey to Elyria
is different from that of fifty years ago.

The Oberlin colony had no municipal or corporate
existence. It was simply a settlement in the town-
ship of Russia, and could have no privileges or regu-
lations apart from the township. In 1846, the vil-
lage of Oberlin was incorporated by act of the legis-
lature, and the Oberlin colony was no longer spoken
of. The " Town Hall" was erected in 1870, at a
cost of nearly twenty thousand dollars. In 1858, a

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 239

stranger came into town to establish gas works, and
the citizens subscribed the required stock. The en-
terprise failed financially before it had afforded any
light to the town, and Mr. Samuel Plumb, one of the
citizens, took it up and carried it forward, the sub-
scribers having surrendered their stock to aid in the
enterprise. Thus Oberlin was provided with gas-
works some years in advance of other and older
towns in the neighborhood. The discovery of kero-
sene a year later made the gas less necessary.

The Oberlin Fire Department was organized, or
rather equipped, in 1852, by the purchase of two
hand-engines from Rochester, N. Y. These served
the necessities of the town until 1865, when a Silsby
steamer was bought for four thousand dollars.

No very disastrous or sweeping fires have occurred
in Oberlin. One of the business corners has been
twice burned out, involving considerable loss to in-
dividuals. The first burning was in 1848, when the
printing office of Jas. M. Fitch, the publisher of The
Oberlin Evangelist, was destroyed, and several less
important business places. The buildings which
took the place of those burned were somewhat bet-
ter, but they were of wood, designed to be tempo-
rary. In 1882 this corner was again burned, with
much greater loss to various parties, but the result
has been a great improvement to the town. A very
fine business block now occupies the corner, and a
similar fire on that corner is not likely to recur.

The two-story frame hotel on the corner opposite
was burned in 1865, and thus place was made for the
better hotel and business block now occupying the

240 OBERLIN.

,

corner. The third corner, which was the first occu-
pied, embracing Oberlin Hall, the first college build-
ing, has thus far escaped the catastrophe of fire,
an immunity which cannot be expected another
fifty years. Other fires have been limited to single
buildings of more or less value. The most serious,
perhaps, of them all was the burning of the original
mills, at the corner of Main and Mill Streets, in 1846.
They had been sold by the college some years be-
fore. No serious fire has ever occurred in the col-
lege buildings, but there have been many narrow
escapes.

The first school for children in the colony was
taught by Miss Eliza Branch, now Mrs. George
Clark, of Oberlin. Her school-room was the log
house built by Mr. Pease. This was the primary
department of the college. The first school-house
was built in 1838 — a small frame house, of one story,
placed on a corner of the lot occupied by the First
Church. This old school-house still survives in a
dwelling house on South Main Street, owned by E.
M. Leonard. It was the only school-house until
185 1, when a two-story brick house was built on the
west side of Professor Street, over against Tappan
Hall, sufficient for three departments ; and the
school was graded accordingly. After a few years
this was found inadequate, and the building was en-
larged by adding two wings and carrying up the
central part to three stories. Thus seven school-
rooms were provided, and the school was more fully
graded. In 1874 this building was sold to the col-
lege, and a new Union school-house was built on

SCHOOL HOUSE.

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 24 1

the east side of Main Street, a little south of the
principal business corners — a fine building containing
eleven school-rooms and costing about forty thou-
sand dollars. The school has again outgrown its
quarters, and other rooms in the vicinity are occu-
pied. The number of pupils enrolled in these
schools is about seven hundred and fifty, and a su-
perintendent and seventeen teachers are employed.

The following superintendents have been em-
ployed: Joseph H. Barnum, from 1854 to i860;
Samuel Sedgwick, from i860 to 1869; Edward F.
Moulton, from 1869 to 1876; Henry R. Chittenden,
from 1876 to 1878; H. J. Clark, from 1878 to 1882;
and George W. Waite, the present superintendent.
The first four were graduates of Oberlin College,
Mr. Clark, of Western Reserve, and Mr. Waite of
Amherst.

The churches and church buildings were briefly
described in a preceding chapter.

The earliest cemetery was on the south bank of
Plum Creek, and west of Main Street, and the first
burials were near the street, a little north of the lot
occupied by the Episcopal church. After a few
years the graves were removed from the lots on the
street, and only the land in the rear was occupied.
In 1863 grounds about three fourths of a mile south-
west of the village were purchased by a Cemetery As-
sociation, and carefully laid out and adorned. Since
that time the old ground, which was leased to the
Oberlin Society by the college for cemetery purposes,
has been surrendered to the college, and most of the
graves have been removed to the new cemetery.

242 0 BERLIN.

The first two years the mail for Oberlin came and
went by South Amherst, six miles north, and was
carried in a small hand-bag, by Harvey Gibbs, the
first post-master. He built the first post-office,
which was on North Main Street, over against Tap-
pan Hall. The walk from Tappan Hall eastward
across the park was constructed by the students,
for the purpose, chiefly, of going to the post-office.

Mr. Brewster Pelton built and kept the first hotel,
a log building, on the east side of the lot occupied
by the present hotel. No strong drink or tobacco
was furnished at his house, but after some anxiety
and discussion it was decided to be " impracticable"
to keep a hotel without furnishing tea and coffee.
In the spring of 1834 he built a large two-story
frame house on the corner, and this was the princi-
pal hotel until it was burned in 1865. For the pur-
pose of securing a suitable hotel, in the absence of
business sufficient to sustain it, the citizens, in 1867,
subscribed the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars,
and the college a like sum, to encourage the enter-
prise. Mr. Henry Viets accepted the proposal,
received the money, giving to Oberlin College a
mortgage of five thousand dollars on the property,
the condition of which is that a suitable building
shall be provided, and a hotel kept in a satisfactory
manner, and that all intoxicating drinks and danc-
ing parties shall be excluded. Thus the hotel, called
until recently the " Park House," was built, and on
these conditions it is carried on.

The private dwellings of the town began in a
humble way. After the first year few, if any, log

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 243

houses were built, but the frame houses were small,
and most of them were so constructed as to suggest
future enlargement. They were of one story, or a
story and a half, and the cornice was often lack-
ing on one gable, suggesting a front or main part.
One house, near the corner of Main and Lorain
Streets, a story and a half in height, exhibited, for
some years, a solitary plate of a two-story building,
high in the air, a symbol of the owner's confidence
in the future. In the majority of cases, the hope
of enlargement was not realized. The lacking cor-
nice was at length added, and a pleasant porch was
constructed over the door. But the enlargement
came with a new generation, and the work of ad-
ding a front or main part to the humble dwellings
of the early day is still going on. At present the
town is conspicuous for the large number of unpre-
tentious but pleasant and homelike dwellings, with
spacious yards attractive with trees and grass.

The Soldiers' Monument was built in 1870, by a
contribution of four thousand dollars, in which citi-
zens and students and alumni and friends all united.
The generous contractor did not limit the expendi-
ture to the amount placed at his disposal. The cost
was about a thousand dollars more than the sub-
scription.

The college square in 1834 was a field of stumps
surrounded by a Virginia " worm" fence. In 1836,
as Tappan Hall came into use, the students occu-
pying it waged war upon the stumps, and under
axe and fire they rapidly disappeared. Soon after-
ward, students from the East, whose life had not

244 OBERLIN.

been a constant warfare with trees, led in the en-
terprise of replanting the square with young trees
from the forest, and the largest trees upon the
square, excepting the historical elm, are the result
of that first planting. An annual tree-planting was
established, and the good work was continued,
Evergreens were added fifteen or twenty years later,
by a special movement set on foot by Professor
Peck.

The crooked rail fence had given place some }rears
before to a stately post and rail fence, of oak tim-
ber, painted white. The expense was provided for
jointly by the college and the people of the town.
When this fence began to fail, a hedge of the Osage
orange took its place, and when, in the advance of
civilization, hedges and fences became unnecessary,
the hedge which had been trained with so much
care was exterminated. The grading and general
improvement of 1881 cost two thousand dollars, the
citizens subscribing one thousand, and the college
furnishing an equal amount.

There was no early necessity for a bank in Ober-
lin, or rather there was no capital to provide such a
convenience. The " First National Bank" was es-
tablished in 1863, with Mr. Samuel Plumb as princi-
pal stockholder and president. Upon the recent
expiration of its charter, it was reorganized as the
" Citizens' National Bank." The other business op-
erations of the village are such as belong to a col-
lege town, with very little in the way of manufac-
turing interest. A flourin^-mill, saw-mill, and two
planing-mills, two carriage factories and a furniture

GROWTH OT THE COLONY. 245

factory, give the extent of business in this form.
The chief support of business is the presence of
hundreds of students who must be fed and clothed,
and the families that naturally gather at such a
centre of education.

Book stores are among the most conspicuous of
our business establishments. Besides the college
some special schools have been carried on here for
many years — a telegraphic school and commercial
and writing schools. The outside public often con-
nect these special schools, in their thought, with the
college. The college has no connection with any of
these, except a single writing school.

The town has supported no saloons, and there is
a very earnest purpose among the people that no
saloon shall ever flourish here. A dubious drug
store has caused them some anxiety, and a single
tobacco store has had a patronage beyond the bene-
fits it has conferred.

A printing establishment was among the early
business institutions of the place. The Catalogue of
1834 was printed at Elyria, of '35 and '36 at Cleve-
land, and of '38 at Cuyahoga Falls. The college
was too busy, or too poor, to publish a Catalogue in
'37. The Catalogue of 1839 was printed at Oberlin
by James Steele, and the work was well done. Mr.
Steele was also printing the Evangelist at the time,
the first volume of which was issued that year. He
established the office while he was a student in the
Theological Seminary. The Evangelist was an eight
page quarto, issued every two weeks for twenty-four
years, at one dollar a year. In 1844 James M. Fitch,

246 OBERLIN.

having returned from the Jamaica Mission, be-
came publisher of the Evangelist, and carried on the
printing and book business until his death, in 1867.
Besides the Evangelist, and from time to time a vil-
lage paper, he printed on his hand-press and pub-
lished several volumes, among them, in 1846-47, two
volumes of Theology, by Professor Finney, of six
hundred octavo pages each.

Since Mr. Fitch's day, two and sometimes three
printing establishments have been maintained here.
The earliest village paper that attained permanence
was the Lorain County News, now the Oberlin
News, first issued in i860. The first editor was A.
B. Nettleton, then a student, afterward a soldier, and
now proprietor of the Minnesota Tribune. J. B. T.
Marsh took up the pen laid down by Mr. Nettleton,
afterwards entering the army, and returning again
to his editorial work. Later he was eight years edi-
tor of The Advance at Chicago, and is now treas-
urer of Oberlin College. The Oberlin News, through
many changes, has held on its way, and has attained
a permanent character and success under its present
proprietor, Mr. W. H. Pearce.

In 1868 Rev. W. C. French, rector of the Episco-
pal church, began the publication of The Standard
of the Cross, at Oberlin, and continued it five years,
when he removed his office to Cleveland. Other
papers and other volumes, of more or less impor-
tance, among them the papers published by the stu-
dents, have been printed at the Oberlin offices.
Thus printing and publishing, though less conspicu-
ous here than in some other university towns, has

GROWTH OF THE COLONY. 247

been among the prominent industries of the place.
The later volumes published at Oberlin by Mr. E. J.
Goodrich have in general been printed in Eastern
cities.

The first physician in Oberlin, after Dr. Dascomb's
early service in that capacity, was Dr. Alexander
Steele, who came in 1836, and continued his profes-
sional work until his death in 1872. Dr. Isaac Jen-
nings came in 1839; tnen followed Dr. Otis Boise,
Dr. Homer Johnson, Dr. William Bunce, Dr. Dudley
Allen, and others later. Dr. Jennings was a thor-
oughly educated physician, holding the honorary
degree of M.D. from Yale, and had had a successful
practice of some years ; but becoming convinced
that medicine was harmful instead of helpful, he had
entirely discarded it. He called his system " Ortho-
pathy," upon the theory that nature, even in disease,
was doing the best possible, and could not be as-
sisted, except by judicious nursing. He would visit
any one that called for him, and give suggestions,
but no medicine, and made no charges. He pub-
lished several volumes setting forth his views. He
died in 1875, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

CHAPTER X.

COLLEGE WORK AND STUDENT LIFE — THE
EARLIER AND THE LATER.

The general view of the college work set forth in
the preceding pages would perhaps suggest the in-
quiry whether it had not involved so much of out-
side interests, and so many diverting influences, as
seriously to interfere with its value and effectiveness
in the definite work of education. Has the college
been able to maintain regular and systematic and
thorough scholastic work in the midst of these vari-
ous movements and interests? If such an impres-
sion or doubt has been produced, let it be remem-
bered that a record of fifty years, crowded into a
few pages, necessarily involves a concentration of
events which does not belong to the actual expe-
rience ; events separated by years in the actual life,
stand side by side in the record. Thus what appear
as multiplied perturbations have in fact occurred at
rare intervals — one or two perhaps in a single gener-
ation of student life.

Still another suggestion occurs. With the most
careful arrangements to concentrate the thought and
attention of a body of students upon their studies,
diversions of some sort will occur. If they do not
come from without, they will spring up from among
themselves. Interest in the affairs of the commu-

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFEl. 249

nity, the country and the world is often absorbing-,
but not more so than interest in college politics, in
such profound and weighty questions as which class
shall win the field in the rush, or which " nine" or
which club shall bear off the honors in the matched
game or regatta. There will be agitations of some
kind in such a mass of active, fervid human nature.
It is quite possible that the more grave and weighty
the concerns which press upon such a body, the less
the effervescence may be. Efforts are sometimes
made to exclude national politics from college life.
But the question, who shall be president of the Re-
public? is no more distracting than who shall be
president of a college society ? and it is far more
worthy of interest and attention. The gravity of
any matter of concern tends to give seriousness and
steadiness to those who cherish it. There are con-
cerns pertaining to the country and the world from
which no one, young or old, in student life or in ac-
tive life, can afford to be excluded. An important
factor in all education consists in giving to such
interests their proper place and thought, and strong
and well-balanced character can no more be secured
apart from such influences, than vigorous plant life
without light and air. Those who planted Oberlin,
and those who have since had responsibility in its
direction, have not felt at liberty to provide for
sheltering the young people from the interests
and excitements of the country and the world.

There was very early a suspicion abroad that the
educational work at Oberlin was to be narrow and
superficial. The name " Collegiate Institute" per-

250 OBERLIN.

haps suggested an ambitious academy instead of
a modest college. Co-education was regarded as
indicating the same drift, the " burning of the class-
ics" fixed the impression, and the supposed ultraisms
and heresies that followed rendered the investiga-
tion of the facts unnecessary. Newspaper writers
assumed the impression as fact, and the general
public trusted the newspapers. It would perhaps
be regarded as a bold statement, that there was
never any foundation for the assumed fact. The
first Freshman class was admitted in 1834, and the
preparation of the candidates was such that they
would unquestionably have been admitted at any
eastern college. So persistent was the misrepresen-
tation, that in 1839 an appendix to the Catalogue
was published, giving a comparison of the courses
at Yale and at Oberlin. In science and literature
and philosophy, the two courses were almost identi-
cal. In languages the Yale course gave considerably
more Latin, and the Oberlin course an excess of
Greek and Hebrew which more than balanced the
deficiency. The facts were that a student in good
standing at Oberlin found no difficulty in entering
ad enndem any New England college. Nothing less
than this was to be expected, in view of the fact
that the leading professors at Oberlin were men who
had graduated with honors — in two cases, the high-
est honors — at Williams and Amherst and Yale. It
is true the course in languages at Oberlin was modi-
fied by excluding the most objectionable classic
authors, especially Latin poets, and substituting
New Testament Greek, and Hebrew in part. In-

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFE. 25 I

stead of Horace, George Buchanan's Latin version
of the Psalms was announced, but when the time
came for its use only a few copies could be gath-
ered up in this country and abroad. At length
such editions of the poets were published that they
could be introduced with propriety into classes of
which young women were members, and the differ-
ences of the Oberlin course disappeared. The re-
quirements for admission have been increased, dur-
ing the progress of the college, by a full year's study,
and a similar change has taken place in the colleges
throughout the land.

The establishment and maintenance of a large
preparatory department or academic school at Ober-
lin has been essential to its work. Such schools have
existed in connection with all Western colleges. In
the absence of academies adequate to the work, and
from the fact that the high schools of later days
have rarely undertaken it, the college has been com-
pelled to prepare its own students. The work at
Oberlin began in this way, and has continued until
the present time. Five sixths of the present Fresh-
man class have received the whole or a part of their
preparation here. Besides being a preparatory
school, this department provides for a large number
of students who do not contemplate a full course,
but desire preparation for business or teaching. One
incidental result of gathering these persons in the
school is that large numbers of them fall under the
attractions of study, and within a year take up the
preparation for a college course. A large proportion

2 $2 OBERLIN.

of those who enter the course here are drawn from
this class of students.

To Oberlin this large preparatory school has prob-
ably been more essential than to any other college.
By no other arrangement could large numbers of
students have been gathered ; and the large num-
bers were necessary to furnish an inviting field of
labor to Mr. Finney, and others who came at the
same time. The influence of the school could not
have been what it has been without these numbers.

From the beginning, care has been taken not to
exhaust the strength of the college professors upon
the preparatory department. Only in very rare in-
stances has a preparatory class been instructed by
a college professor. The policy has been to confine
each professor to his own general department, and
as far as possible to his own specific work. Theo-
logical professors have very rarely been called to
college classes, nor have college professors taught in
the preparatory department. Thus students do not
in the beginning of their course feel that they have
received all that the college can do for them. Pass-
ing from one department to another they come
tinder new instructors, almost as really as in going
to a different school.

To avoid this difficulty, which besets young col-
leges with preparatory departments, the preparatory
school, from the beginning, was carried on by plac-
ing a principal in charge, and giving him one or
perhaps two permanent teachers, who should take
the advanced classes in laii£uaores ; while other
classes were provided for by drawing their teachers

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFE. 253

from the large body of advanced students in the
college and theological departments. Rarely was
more than one class given to a student. It is quite
probable that there were disadvantages in this ar-
rangement. The teachers would often lack experi-
ence, and could not often acquire the force and
authority of one familiar with the ground, and who
carried with him the weight and momentum which
years confer. This was in part counterbalanced by
the presence and general influence of professors in
the other departments, which was diffused through-
out the institution. The whole school has been
managed as one establishment, and the wisdom and
influence of the Faculty as a whole has permeated
the entire body, securing advantages not to be found
in a moderately equipped academy or high school.

To the students employed as teachers the arrange-
ment is specially profitable. The compensation is
small, originally twelve and a half to eighteen and
three fourths cents an hour, later thirty-five to sixty-
five cents, but the discipline and experience are more
than the compensation. It gives the student-teach-
er an opportunity to test his own knowledge, and
is often a training for his life-work. The college has
thus, to a considerable extent, brought up its own
professors, and has furnished professors for many
other colleges. By this means, and by teaching in
vacations, the teaching impulse and faculty have
been quite widely developed among Oberlin stu-
dents, and to this influence, in part, their tendency to
establish colleges and schools may, doubtless, be
traced.

254 0 BERLIN.

In later years the number of permanent teachers
in the Preparatory Department has been much in-
creased, but more than twenty students, young men
and women, are still employed. These furnish a
natural link between the Faculty and the body of
students, to preclude the painful separation which
sometimes occurs ; and this result comes spontane-
ously, without any intentional effort. The pupils
in the preparatory department are under the same
general regulations as in the other departments.
They have never been gathered in a school-room to
pursue their studies under the eye of a teacher.
They prepare their lessons in their private rooms,
and come together for recitations only. None can
be received who have not sufficient maturity and
self-control to prosper under this arrangement.

The college work has been essentially like that in
other American colleges, with a similar apportion-
ment of studies. Latin and Greek and Mathematics
have characterized the first part of the course, and
Science and Literature and Philosophy the latter
part. From the first, special prominence was given
to philosophical studies and inquiries. The presence
and preaching and teaching of such men as Presi-
dent Mahan and Professors Finney, Morgan and
others, awoke an interest in this direction. Besides,
it was a time of great quickening of speculative
thought in the country. The New School Theology
was claiming attention, and arousing the country to
earnest inquiry.

The antislavery movement, too, was not simply a
movement in practical action, but it was laying its

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLEE. 2$$

foundations in great principles of ethical philosophy;
and Oberlin became inevitably one of the centres
of this speculative activity. President Mahan was
a strong thinker in this direction, and impressed
himself very decidedly upon the whole school. At
his coming there was no class in college in advance
of the Freshman, and he began a course of philos-
ophy with them, and carried them through the three
remaining years with such authors as Abercrombie,
Cousin, Dugald Stewart and others, followed by a
year's course of lectures. The whole school shared
more or less in the enthusiasm, and received an im-
pulse which it has never quite lost. In the Cata-
logue of 1835, no definite place in the course is
given to these studies, but the statement of studies
closes with the remark, " Intellectual and Moral
Philosophy extensively." In the following Cata-
logues it is confined to the Junior and Senior
years.

Mr. Finney's work in the Theological Department
was equally effective ; and the difference between
these two prominent teachers, which was soon devel-
oped, as to the " nature and foundation of moral
obligation," increased the interest. No parties were
ever formed around these diverse views ; but what-
ever may be said at this day about the feebleness of
the original Graham diet, Oberlin students, in the
line of intellectual nourishment, were fed on strong
meat. To discuss first principles became their pas-
time. They rested on their hoes in the cornfield to
look into the inner consciousness, and the manual
labor cause suffered in the interests of philosophy.

2 56 0 BERLIN.

The demand for books was quite limited. Kant,
Coleridge, Cousin, Locke and similar authors were
called for, but the want of libraries of history, gem
eral literature and science was not greatly felt.
Possibly it was, in part, the absence of the books
that prevented the existence of the want. It is true
there were at that day great readers among the stu-
dents, in the various lines of literature, but the ten-
dency was not general. A student of that period,
burdened with the duty of an essay, rarely went to
the library for relief. His first impulse was to draw
upon the resources of his own consciousness.

In these respects there is a change. Science and
literature and history have come to occupy the
places which belong to them, and the students are
drawn toward the libraries ; but we may hope the
day is far distant when they shall cease to have a
lively interest in the study of philosophy. The
study of the ancient languages, Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, has always held a prominent place, and
linguistic study is quite as prominent to-day as at
any time in the past. Natural Science has come
into great prominence in the world during the fifty
years, and it has made a much wider place for itself
in our course than was originally assigned it. The
modern languages, French and German, have claimed
their share of attention.

It was the purpose of the founders, and of the
men who joined the enterprise in 1835, that Biblical
study should be a prominent feature of the course ;
and the early deviation from the general college
course was in this direction. The Greek and He-

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LITE. 2$?

brew Scriptures were to take the place of some of
the classic authors. This arrangement was earnestly
adopted, and there was no division of feeling on the
subject. It was a very common thing for the trus-
tees at their meetings, in the earlier years, to pro-
pose to the Faculty the inquiry whether this idea
had been fully and thoroughly maintained. The
first difficulty encountered was, that it placed the
college in misadjustment with other colleges. Ober-
lin graduates entering the Theological Department
would have had more than a year of Hebrew, while
those from other colleges had none. In going to
other theological seminaries a similar difficulty was
encountered. Then it was not clear that those who
were not to enter the ministry could wisely devote
a year or more to the study of Hebrew. Similar
difficulties were felt in regard to the New Testament
Greek, but they were not so pressing. The result
at length was that the Hebrew was committed wholly
to the Theological Department, and the New Testa-
ment Greek was limited to a term or two, and more
recently has been mostly discontinued.

Through all the fifty years there has been persist-
ent and careful attention to the study of the Scrip-
tures. Every class, in all the literary departments,
has its hour a week for this study; and it is not in-
troduced as an extra, but takes the place, for the day,
of one of the regular studies. The Bible course is
so arranged as to secure on the part of the pupils
some intelligent apprehension of the contents of the
Scriptures, the last year being devoted to a consid-
eration of the leading facts and doctrines of the

258 OB E KLIN.

Christian faith, with a free and open discussion of
doubts and difficulties. The study of Christian evi-
dences has held its usual place in the course.

The requirements upon the student in the way of
attendance upon religious services have always been
two church services on the Sabbath, and daily even-
ing prayers at the chapel. As in New England
colleges, six o'clock morning prayers were originally
held for the young men, but attendance upon family
prayers at their various boarding places was at
length substituted. Students select for themselves
the church which they will attend, but the attend-
ance must continue for a term. No college church
exists, nor is any regular Sunday service held for
students. A special voluntary gathering is some-
times called.

In 1835 the "Thursday Lecture" was established,
which students were required to attend. It was a
religious lecture, not specially a college arrangement,
but an appointment of the church, held at a late
hour of the afternoon. As students were required
to attend, and the lecture was given by Professor
Finney, or by some other professor, it came at
length to be regarded as a college appointment, and
as such it has been continued to the present time.
Within the last ten years it has ceased to be a dis-
tinctively religious lecture. Each professor, in his
turn, takes his own topic, literary, scientific, histori-
cal or practical ; and the hour is regarded by the
students as an occasion of interest and profit. A
lecturer is frequently invited from abroad.

A weekly prayer meeting is appointed for each

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFE. 2 59

class, in all departments, led by a professor or other
teacher. Attendance upon this is voluntary. Occa-
sionally, in seasons of special interest, a class ar-
ranges for itself a daily half hour meeting. No
meeting continues beyond an hour. The " Young
People's Meeting" is an appointment of long stand-
ing— not strictly a college arrangement nor the ap-
pointment of any church. It is a meeting held on
Monday evening immediately after the supper hour,
to which all the young people of the place are in-
vited, with a permanent leader, usually one of the
younger professors. The meeting generally gathers
some hundreds, mostly students. The chapel of
Council Hall is the regular place of meeting. When
this becomes too strait the college chapel is resort-
ed to.

It is a peculiarity of college arrangements at
Oberlin that every recitation or lecture is opened,
after the roll call, by a brief prayer, in which the
teacher leads, scarcely longer than an ordinary bless-
ing at table, or by the singing of a verse or two, in
which the class chorister leads. The general culti-
vation of music, and the pocket hymn-book, make
the singing possible and pleasant. This practice
came in with Mr. Finney, in 1835 — not by any ordi-
nance, but by spontaneous adoption, and the cus-
tom has made the law.

At Oberlin, as everywhere, many features of the
college life are determined by the students them-
selves, within certain limitations. They organize
and conduct their own literary societies, with the
provision that there shall be no secret organization

26o OBERLIN.

or fraternity, that no society shall embrace both
young men and young women, and that the meet-
ings shall not be continued after ten o'clock in
the evening. Of the permanent societies, of long
standing, there are three among the young men
of the college classes, and two among the young
women. These are devoted exclusively to literary
exercises, and are conducted with great vigor and
decorum and success. In some of these, failures to
meet appointments are so rare that they are said
not to occur at all. Offensive rivalries among the
societies have been almost unknown.

The three societies of young men unite in fitting
up and occupying a single room, as do the two so-
cieties of young women. More rooms are desirable,
and will probably soon be attained. The five so-
cieties are again united in building up a single
library, under the charge of the " Union Library
Association."

The " Oratorical Association" is an organization
of the college classes to elect speakers for a yearly
" Home Contest." The successful speaker appears
again in a " State Contest" in which several colleges
of the State are represented, and the fortunate com-
petitor finally represents the State in an " Inter-State
Contest," where several Western States are repre-
sented. This Association has existed for several
years past, but whether the benefits equal the out-
lay does not seem to be determined in the judg-
ment of either students or Faculty.

The history of college journalism at Oberlin is
brief. The Oberlin Student's Monthly, a magazine

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFE. 26 1

of thirty-two pages, was published by the literary
societies for two and a half years, beginning with
November, 1858. The war made such drafts upon
editors and subscribers that it was discontinued in
1 86 1. The Obcrlin Review, a quarto of sixteen
pages, was begun in 1873. It is published by the
" Union" of the literary societies, each of the five
societies appointing an editor, and the Union an
editor-in-chief. The paper has been conducted, in
general, with ability and dignity, and in harmony
with the interests and honor of the college, and has
been financially successful.

The social opportunities of Oberlin students are
naturally provided for in the organization of the
college. It is one of the advantages of the system
that it secures a good degree of social culture and en-
joyment without any expenditure of time or thought
or effort. The student who holds on his way,
passing his fellow-students on the sidewalk, meeting
them in the recitation room and the chapel, will re-
ceive the essential benefit of cultivated society, even
if he should attend no social gatherings, nor make
any personal calls. Like the sunlight and the atmos-
phere it is diffused around him, without his responsi-
bility. He will not grow into a recluse, nor find himself
disqualified for general society, whenever the time
shall come. But every student who becomes identi-
fied with a class will find further social opportunities
opening to him — an annual or semi-annual class
gathering, an invitation with his class to the home of
his professor for an evening, or an hour or two at a
"social" in the church parlors. One wholesome

262 O BERLIN.

social habit established in the early times has come
down to us. Only the early hours are devoted to
social entertainment. Even in general gatherings
with which college arrangements have nothing to
do, the hour of ten seems to be regarded as the
natural limit.

In the matter of recreations and sports, the stu-
dents, with reasonable limitations and suggestions,
arrange for themselves. There is an Athletic Asso-
ciation having in charge a ball ground, and with the
large number of students games are arranged be-
tween different classes and groups which have suffi-
cient interest, so that it is not necessary to visit
other colleges in the pursuit of sport. The Associa-
tion has sometimes received and entertained another
college club, on its travels, but its champion " nine"
does not go abroad in term time. There are no
boating facilities within reach at Oberlin ; thus all
the questions which elsewhere arise, in connection
with such privileges, are easily disposed of.

The gymnasium made its way slowly at Oberlin,
because it seemed to be inconsistent with the manual
labor idea ; but after various attempts, an unpre^
tending establishment with moderate equipments is
open to young men, and a better one for young
women. The exercise is at present voluntary, but
classes are organized under competent teachers, and
all who desire can have the benefit without charge.

Sedentary games of chance and skill were formerly
prohibited at Oberlin, but the restriction has been
removed except in the case of cards. To visit a bil-
liard saloon is still reckoned a misdemeanor.

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LIFE. 263

The general discipline of the college was at the
beginning conformed to the parental idea, and it
has not been materially changed. The idea has
been accepted that the college is a place where
character and habits are to be formed, as well as
instruction imparted. No strict personal surveillance
was ever undertaken. The student has been thrown
greatly upon his own responsibility, with the under-
standing that his continued enjoyment of the privi-
leges of the school must depend upon his satisfactory
deportment. No study hours have ever been pre-
scribed, except as limiting the time of ball-playing
and other sports upon the college grounds, and of
social calls upon the young women of the college.
Each student studies when and where he pleases,
provided he reports himself, with due preparation,
at the appointed hour. The regulations are few and
obvious, such as are necessary to the comfortable
association of such a body of students. There is a
special requirement, which was once peculiar to
Oberlin College, but is not now, to abstain from the
use of tobacco. The rule is coeval with the college,
and the time has never come when it seemed advis-
able to dispense with it. The Faculty are a unit in
support of the rule, and have always been. At the
beginning, the maintenance of the rule was not diffi-
cult ; very few young men came who had formed the
habit. The use of tobacco has been greatly extended
in the country within the last twenty-five years, and
many young men come with the habit fastened upon
them. They come with a full understanding of the
requirement, and often for the purpose, on their own

264 OBERLIN.

part or that of parents and guardians, of recovery
from the habit. Frankness is encouraged. No
disgrace is visited upon the one who fails. If with-
out deceit, or attempts at imposition, he avows his
failure, he receives an honorable dismission and can
go where he will encounter no prohibition of the
kind. Every year brings more or less of such failure ;
and it is too much to hope that there are no cases
which escape observation. But the rule has been
maintained with a good degree of success; and since
the principle has been adopted in government
schools, in this country and abroad, as well as in
some others, we may hold on our way with even
more courage. It would seem that every school
open to young women might insist upon the princi-
ple as a matter of essential decency.

Undoubtedly, the general reputation of Oberlin
tended at first to bring to the school those of serious
character and aims. But for many years past it is
not probable that those who have come have differed
essentially from the students gathered from the
same regions in other schools. The influence of
wholesome traditions has been helpful. The moral
atmosphere has been measurably clear and a health-
ful condition has been maintained. There have
been anxieties and disappointments, but on the
whole those upon whom the responsibility of direc-
tion has rested have had occasion to rejoice in the
results. The exceptions to good order and earnest
work have been comparatively few, and the product
in genuine character and purpose has been most
gratifying. There has never been a time when the

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LIFE. 265

overwhelming sentiment of the school was not on
the side of good order and wholesome discipline, and
this has to a great extent made the manifestation of
authority unnecessary. Nothing has occurred in
the fifty years that could take the name of a college
rebellion. There has been no organized resistance
to authority. Only twice in the fifty years has any-
thing occurred to which the term "hazing" could be
applied. The first case took place more than forty
years ago, when several prominent young men in
college entrapped and punished with stripes a vile
youth who had sent anonymously most disgraceful
and infamous missives to worthy young women in
the school. They were reputable and conscientious
young men, but their indignation carried them away.
When they had time for consideration, although they
were entirely unknown, five of them came before
the church of which they were members, and con-
fessed their own part in the transaction. As they
apprehended, the confession cost them dear. In a
criminal prosecution which followed they were fined
a hundred dollars each, and costs, and in a civil
prosecution, damages were laid upon them to the
amount of three hundred dollars each. This case
has been quoted within the past few years as having
a bearing against co-education. What, exactly, the
argument is, does not appear. The second case
occurred five years ago, too recently to need to be
recalled. It was a painful one, and the treatment of
it was decisive and effectual. One such case in fifty
years ought to be enough. The earnest life which
came in with the founding, and which has in a good

266 OBERLW.

degree continued to the present hour, has proved
a safeguard against many of the follies which tend
to spring up in college life, and the aim of the admin-
istration, which has been measurably successful, has
been to retain the convictions and sympathies of
the students on the side of the order of the school.

No monitorial system has ever been adopted : each
young man reports weekly, in writing, to the pro-
fessor in charge, his success or failure in attendance
upon prescribed duties. The young women report
to the lady principal. This method might not be
always wisest, but it has served the purpose so well
that it has continued until the present time. Each
student is marked for his performance in recitations
and examinations, and a record is kept, but this record
is not made the basis of any grading of the class, or
of a distribution of honors. Nor is any announcement
of standing made at any time. The record is for
the private information of teachers and pupils and
guardians. A certain standard must be attained as
a condition of advancement ; beyond this the record
has no formal bearing.

The college has no special honors to distribute,
and no prizes. The commencement programme is
arranged alphabetically, and position has no signifi-
cance. With the exception of one or two years, the
entire classes have appeared at commencement with
their orations or essays. As classes enlarge, this
will be impracticable, and some selection must be
made. Thus far the number has in no case exceeded
forty, and four or five minutes is the time allowed to
each. There is no question that to a Commencement

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LIFE. 26?

audience this arrangement is more interesting than
to have a few speakers, and twelve or fifteen min-
utes for each. They come to see the young per-
formers and hear their voices, not so much to be
instructed. Yet there is a certain special interest in
seeing how much can be said in five minutes, and
the discipline is good. Commencement at Oberlin
has always brought an audience — not many visitors
from great distances, but the friends of the graduates,
and the people from the immediate neighborhood.
In the earliest days the great tent, which would
shelter three thousand, was filled, and afterward the
church, and often there were almost as many without
as within. The novelty has passed away but there
is still a sufficient audience.

The college confers the usual degrees, but has
done little in the way of honorary degrees. There
has been no positive action by trustees or Faculty in
opposition to such degrees, only a traditional repug-
nance. Even the common degrees, in course, have
been sometimes held in disrepute among the students.
Half of the class of 1838, which numbered twenty,
declined to receive the degree, and the President
announced, at the commencement, that those who
desired the degree could receive their diplomas at
the college office. No other instance of such scru-
pulousness has appeared. The degrees have always
been conferred in the simplest manner, without any
attempt at Latin discourse. The earlier diplomas
were in English, and written by hand, but when
plates were procured a Latin text appeared.

The honorary degrees thus far conferred by the

263 OBERLIN.

college are of two kinds, the honorary A.M., given
to such students of the college as make good prog-
ress in their course but failed to graduate, and
afterward secured a good standing for themselves in
literary or professional work ; and the same degree
granted to those holding the diploma of the " Liter-
ary Course" who have attained a similar standing.
The Literary Course at present carries with it no
degree. No doctorate, in any line, has ever been
conferred by the college. Neighboring institutions
have sometimes shown their good-will in this way
towards Oberlin men, but thus far without any re-
ciprocity.

The student's expenses have always been moderate
at Oberlin. It was a prominent idea with the found-
ers to provide a school where young men, at least,
without money, but with courage and industry and
economy, could make their own way and come out
without a load of debt. In the earlier history of the
college this was to a great extent realized. Prob-
ably a majority of the graduates of the first twenty-
five years thus made their own way. The facilities
for manual labor and for school teaching gave them
the opportunity. During the last twenty-five years
many have done the same. The scholarship system
has made tuition merely nominal, and the college has
arranged to keep other expenses at the lowest point.
The boarding halls under the direction of the cok
lege have served in a measure to regulate prices in
the town. A seat at the table in the most desirable
families has rarely been more than three dollars a
week. While the winter vacation continued, and win-

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LLFE. 269

ter schools called for teachers, an enterprising young
man could often make ends meet without any, or
very little, loss of time from the college term. The
general disappearance of winter schools, and the
consequent, or subsequent, change of vacation to
the summer, has made entire self-support more diffi-
cult. The student who undertakes it now may be
obliged to lose a year, or to come through with a
debt. But the necessity of self-support is not as
great as it was fifty, or even thirty, years ago. The
families of what was then the "New West," that
made the constituency of the college, are able now
to aid their sons and their daughters towards an ed-
ucation, while then they could only spare them. The
daughters were the first to receive aid, and the sons
afterward. The present estimate of a student's neces-
sary expenses, including term bills, board, room rent,
fuel, lights, washing, books and stationery, for the
school year of thirty-eight weeks, as published in the
annual announcement, is one hundred and twenty to
two hundred and twenty-five dollars, according to
the arrangements he chooses to make. This, of
course, includes no extras, in the way of music or
art, nor does it provide for clothing or travelling ex-
penses, nor various incidentals which attach to stu-
dent life. The statistics of the Class of 1881, the
latest at hand, give nine hundred and ninety dol-
lars as the average expenses of the class for the en-
tire four years, or a little less than two hundred and
fifty dollars a year ; and about one fourth of the
young men of the class made their own way.

The uncertain part of the student's expense for

27O 0 BE RUN.

education, here and elsewhere, is that which he
makes for himself, or rather that which the students
make for themselves. This, too, is the part most
difficult to regulate. Class expenses, society or club
expenses often outgrow all the college charges, and
they seem to be beyond the reach of college ar-
rangement or authority. The most that can be done
is to guard the door, with great vigilance, against
their intrusion. Thus far, little progress has been
made in the way of such extravagances at Oberlin.
Some weaknesses have occasionally appeared, in
the direction of costly programmes, or unnecessary
music, or flowers, and in a few instances a class
or society has indulged in an unnecessary entertain-
ment, but a wholesome reaction soon appears, and
the tendency is counteracted. The aim at Oberlin
has been, and it is to be hoped will continue to be,
to make it possible for one with limited means, or
with determination and industry and tact, without
means, to receive all the essential benefits of the
course. To the inefficient this must be impossible.
For one who has never earned his way at home, to
come with the expectation of doing full work as a
student and earning two hundred dollars a year be-
sides, is absurd. There are successful students,
without any practical gift whatever, who can never
do anything towards their own support, in a course
of study. But a young man of practical gifts, and
some experience in self-support, should never be de-
terred by want of means from making his way
through a course of liberal education.

The education which students receive in their col-

COLLEGE AND STUDENT LIFE. 2/1

lege course they obtain in large part from each
other. An instructor and books are not sufficient.
The student needs contact with those of his own
age, who have impulses and ideals somewhat like his
own ; and to save him from narrowness he needs to
have contact with a reasonable variety of life and
character. In this respect the student at Oberlin
has had more than ordinary advantages. The col-*
lege has always been national rather than local in
its character. During the earliest years more than
half of the students were from outside the State,
mostly from New England and New York, and
through all its history students have been gathered
here from many different States and from foreign
lands. At present sixty per cent of the students are
from Ohio, and the remainder from forty-nine differ-
ent States and territories and foreign countries. All
the States of the Union are represented except Del-
aware, Maryland, Florida, Nevada and Oregon. At
the same time the Faculty of the college represent, in
their places of education, more than a dozen colleges,
universities, and professional schools. The arrange-
ments are adapted to give the student a Christian
education which shall not be narrow or provincial.

CHAPTER XL

PERSONS WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK.

The Oberlin enterprise, from its beginning, has
filled many hearts and many hands. Many lives
have been concentrated in it, and none of these
could have been spared. Some have had more to
do than others, but human judgment cannot deter-
mine who have been most useful. Those who
have held conspicuous positions attract our notice,
but it is possible that persons out of sight, in the
quiet of the household, providing, through many
years, a Christian home for the youth who needed
it, have contributed as much as any others to the
general cause. It seems necessary that some men-
tion should be made in these pages of those who
have occupied public positions, and have helped to
give direction to the movement. But such mention
Avill, in general, be limited to those who have passed
away, or who have retired from the field. Of the
founders themselves little more needs to be said than
has already appeared, or will appear in their letters
found in the Appendix.

Mr. Siiipherd, in 1844, removed his family to
Olivet, with the purpose burning in his soul to build
another Oberlin, and even a better, but in a few
months he lay down in his last rest. His grave was

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 2J$

made in the new colony, and his memory is still
cherished there. He was only forty-two years of
age at his death, and only thirty when he com-
menced the work at Oberlin ; yet such was his ap-
pearance and bearing and the weight of thought and
care that seemed to rest upon him that he was called
" Father Shipherd " by all the young people of the
colony and the school. No published writings of his
remain. Such letters as are found in the Appendix
are all that can now be gathered up. The photo-
graphic art had not become diffused through the
country at the time of his death, and not even any
outline of his features was left.

Mrs. Esther Raymond Shipherd returned to
Oberlin with her fatherless boys, and by the help of
the people here her former home was secured to her.
After some years these sons came forward to their
mother's aid and provided her a home in Cleveland,
where several of them were settled in business, finally
relieving her of all care and making her declining
years full of quiet usefulness and peace and rest.
She died Dec. 7th, 1879, at tne aSe °f eighty-two.
A memorial window in the Plymouth Church at
Cleveland symbolizes the self-forgetful usefulness and
beauty of her life. A simple tablet in the Ladies'
Hall is all that bears the Shipherd name at Oberlin.
Oberlin itself is their monument.

Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, having no children, had
pledged themselves to the service of the Oberlin
Institute for five years, with no other compensation
than the mere cost of living. When the school was
opened, in 1833, Mr. and Mrs. Stewart took charge

274 O BERLIN.

of the boarding hall, and continued in this capacity
of father and mother to the young people until 1836.
The first year he was also general manager in the ab-
sence of Mr. Shipherd, and treasurer of the college.
His views and practice of frugality, and plainness of
diet were somewhat too rigid for general acceptance
with the students, and in 1836 he resigned the stew-
ardship of the " Hall," and with some sense of dis-
appointment Mr. and Mrs. Stewart made their way
eastward to Vermont, and finally to New York, to
work out the stove problem which for two or three
years had been held in suspense. In this enterprise
Mr. Stewart attained the fullest success; not so
much in the acquisition of wealth for himself, which
was not his aim, as in bringing economy and con-
venience and comfort into thousands of the homes
of the land. He was a philanthropist in his stove
work, as in his work among the Indians and at
Oberlin. He established his home at Troy, N. Y.,
in the neighborhood of the manufacturers who
worked out his inventions. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart
maintained through the years of their prosperity the
same habits of simplicity and frugality which had
characterized them in earlier life, and all their sur-
plus means went to some good cause. Oberlin
shared in their prosperity, although their ideal of a
college and Christian community had not been fully
realized.

Mr. Stewart died December 13th, 1868, worn out
with the cares and perplexities of his business, at
the age of seventy years. Mrs. Stewart still remains
at her home in Troy, and hopes to visit Oberlin on

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 2?$

its jubilee anniversary, the only survivor of the
group that in the parsonage at Elyria, in prayer and
consecration, devoted themselves to the work of
building up in the wilderness a Christian college and
Christian community.

Rev. Seth H. Waldo was the first permanent
teacher that reached the place. He had arranged
to be present at the opening of the school, Decem-
ber 3d, 1833, but was prevented by serious illness.
He came about the first of May, 1834, a week before
the opening of the summer term. He was a gradu-
ate of Amherst and Andover, and was about thirty
years of age at his coming. The arrangement with
him was that he should have the charge of the
school until the appointment of a president, and
should then take the professorship of languages.
He entered upon the work with enthusiasm and
success, but the discussion upon the study of. the
classics, which followed the coming of President
Mahan, led to the apprehension that his ideal of ed-
ucation could never be realized at Oberlin, and he
resigned. He was afterward connected for several
years with the Grand River Institute at Austinburg,
and for many years past has maintained a classical
school at Geneseo, 111., still full of energy, though
full of years.

Three days after the opening of the term in 1834,
Dr. James DASCOMB, with his wife, reached Oberlin.
He had been elected professor of chemistry, botany
and physiology, and was also expected to have the
responsibilities of physician to the new settlement.
He was a native of New Hampshire, and was

276 0 BERLIN.

twenty-six years of age at the time of his coming
to Oberlin. He had received his professional edu-
cation at Dartmouth, under the instruction of Dr.
Mussey. In temperament he was naturally cautious
and conservative. Novelties had no attraction for
him, and no enthusiasm ever took him off his feet.
The truth was what he wanted, and nothing else had
any value in his eyes. The radicalisms which were
soon developed at Oberlin he at first regarded with
some apprehension, and there were times in the
early years when he felt a little inclined to retire
from the position. He did not lift his voice against
the new movement, but quietly held on his way,
taking time to test the new idea or the new doc-
trine. The value of such a conservative force in
the midst of the fervid and plastic mass at Oberlin
was unquestionable. His influence extended be-
yond his own department in this respect, and tended
everywhere to thoroughness.

Through all the changes Dr. Dascomb held the
same position, without any change in his prescribed
duties, from 1834 till 1878, forty-four years, a con-
scientious, thorough, successful instructor. In 1878,
at the age of seventy, his strength failed him, and
he retired from his work. Two years later, in April,
1880, he died, forty-six years after his coming to
Oberlin.

Mrs. Marianne Parker Dascomb was also a
native of New Hampshire, trained in the schools and
the academy near her home in Dunbarton, and
finally in the Young Ladies' Seminary at Ipswich,
Mass., under Miss Grant. After a year of teaching

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 277

she was married to Dr. Dascomb, April 14th, 1834,
and left at once for her new home in the wilderness.
The first year she was a teacher in the school,
and the second year she was elected principal of
the Ladies' Department. The following year, at
her own request, she was released from these duties,
but was at the same time made a member of the
" Ladies' Board," then first organized. In 1852,
under earnest pressure, she again consented to take
the principalship, which she held until 1870, eighteen
years, being then sixty years of age. The remaining
years of her life she continued a member of the La-
dies' Board, and a most helpful counsellor of her
successor. She died on the 4th of April, 1879, Just
a year before her husband.

Mrs. Dascomb was wonderfully fitted for the
work she had to do, strong in the simplicity and
transparency and integrity of her character, and in
the unconscious influence which constantly attended
her. Her power as an instructor and guide did not
lie in any special theories of education which she
consciously held and applied, but in her rare good
sense, in her ready adjustment to every emergency,
and in her cheerful and hopeful temper, which no
cloud could darken. Such a character was an es-
sential factor in the forces which gave form and
vitality to early Oberlin.

Rev. Asa Mahan reached Oberlin in May, 1835,
having been elected to the presidency of the college,
and entered directly upon his duties. He was then
thirty-six years of age, a native of Western New
York, educated at Hamilton College and Andover

2f$ QBE RUN

Seminary. He came from the charge of the Sixth
Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, and his earnest
and vigorous preaching made at once a strong im-
pression upon the people of Oberlin. He was a bold
and aggressive advocate of all the Oberlin ideas and
doctrines, and was always ready, at home or abroad,
to give a reason for the faith that was in him with
earnestness and full conviction. He was an enthu-
siastic teacher in his own department, that of philos-
ophy, and gave an impulse to the study at Oberlin
which it has never lost. His administration of the
college was, in general, successful, and he gave his
heart and strength to its prosperity without any res-
ervation. An infelicity which often attends great
strength of purpose and of character was sometimes
suspected in him, namely, a greater facility in convic-
tion than in conciliation. While he had many ar-
dent friends, there would be another class who were
as distinctly not his friends. Some of his colleagues
felt at times that his strong aggressiveness awakened
unnecessary hostility against the college ; and in
1850, some of his friends having planned a new
University at Cleveland, and invited him to take
the direction of it, he resigned at Oberlin, having
held the presidency of the college fifteen years.
With President Mahan, Oberlin lost somewhat of its
positiveness and aggressiveness.

The enterprise at Cleveland was not a success,
and Mr. Mahan was called to a professorship in
Adrian College, Mich., and at length to the pres-
idency of the college. The last ten years he has
spent in England, in abundant labors in the special

PRES. ASA MAHAN.

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 2J()

work of promoting the "higher" Christian experi-
ence, and now, at the age of eighty-three, he is
preaching to large congregations, editing a maga-
zine called Divine Life, and issuing one volume after
another, such as "The Baptism of the Holy Ghost,"
" Out of Darkness into Light," and "Autobiography,
Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual." While at Oberlin
he published works on " The Will," "Intellectual
Philosophy," and " Moral Philosophy." Other
works, since published, are on Logic, Spiritualism,
Natural Theology, and a Criticism of the Conduct
of the War.

Rev. CHAra.ES G. Finney came in June, 1835,
about a month after Mr. Mahan. He was then
nearly forty-two years of age, with health somewhat
broken by the exhausting evangelistic labors of the
preceding ten years. He found a theological de-
partment of thirty-five students, and entered at
once upon his work, as professor of systematic theol-
ogy. His habit was to preach once on the Sabbath,
not often twice; and the year following he was
called to the pastorship of the church. For many
years he gave the long winter vacation to preaching
as an evangelist, for the most part with some church
at the East. In 1849 ne went to England, and spent
a year and a half in similar labors in London and
other cities of England and Scotland. Ten years
later he went again in the same work for about the
same length of time. In 1 85 1 he was elected Pres-
ident of the college, and held the position until
1865, with the arrangement that he was not to give
attention to the details of the position, but only to

280 0 BERLIN.

the more public duties. His work as an instructor
was not changed except that he took the Senior col-
lege class for some years in moral philosophy. In
1865 he resigned the presidency, being then seventy-
three years of age. He had already, in 1858, sur-
rendered the work in systematic theology, retaining
the pastoral theology and his work as a pastor. In
1872 he laid down the pastoral work, but continued
his pastoral lectures until the year of his death, 1875,
having completed, lacking a few days, his eighty-
third year. No brief mention can characterize him
or set forth his work ; nor is it necessary. He be-
longs to the world, and not to Oberlin alone. His
" Sermons on Important Subjects" and " Revival
Lectures" were published before his coming to Ober-
lin. His " Lectures to Christians" appeared a year
or more afterward, and his two volumes on " Sys-
tematic Theology" in 1846 and 1847. These were
numbered as volumes second and third, his purpose
being to prepare a volume on " Natural Theology"
to precede them. This volume was never written.
While he was in England in 1850, he prepared and
published an edition of his Theology in one volume,
involving the substance of the two preceding vol-
umes. His latest works were a volume on " Ma-
sonry," published in 1869, and his " Memoirs," writ-
ten by himself, and published after his death. Upon
the publication of his Theology very diverse opin-
ions were expressed in regard to it, according to the
standpoint.

Rev. Wm. H. Burleigh closed a notice of the

£& "%,

C^r^

*>Z^Z^t^f

ALT. 80.

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 28 1

work in the Charter Oak, Hartford, Conn., 1846,
with the following paragraph :

" We will venture the prediction that fifty years
hence this volume will rank among the standard
works on theology, and the name of Finney be
mentioned with those of Edwards, Dwight and Em-
mons. Sooner than that we fear he will not be gen-
erally appreciated. The time will come when Fin-
ney will have justice done to his exalted talents,
and when the host of his revilers — men not possess-
ing, in the aggregate, half his mental grasp, will be
lost in oblivion unless he should preserve their
names from utter extinction by an incidental allu-
sion in his works."

Dr. Charles Hodge, in the Biblical Repository,
1847, wrote as follows:

" The work is therefore in a high degree logical.
It is as hard to read as Euclid. Nothing can be
omitted ; nothing passed over slightly. The un-
happy reader once committed to a perusal, is obliged
to go on, sentence by sentence, through the long
concatenation. There is not one resting-place, not
one lapse into amplification or declamation, from the
beginning to the close. It is like one of those spi-
ral staircases, which lead to the top of some high
tower, without a landing from the base to the sum-
mit ; which, if a man has once ascended, he resolves
never to do the like again. The author begins with
certain postulates, or what he calls first truths of
reason, and these he traces out with singular clear-
ness and strength to their legitimate conclusions.
We do not see that there is a break or a defective link

282 0 BERLIN.

in the whole chain. If you grant his principles, you
have already granted his conclusions. . . . We pro-
pose to rely on the reductio ad absurdum, and make
his doctrines the refutation of his principles. . . .
We consider this a fair refutation. If the principle
that obligation is limited by ability, leads to the con-
clusion that moral character is confined to intention,
and that again to the conclusion that when the in-
tention is right nothing can be morally wrong, then
the principle is false. Even if we could not detect
its fallacy, we should know it could not be true."

Dr. George Redford, of Worcester, England, in the
preface to the London edition, which he edited, 185 1,
writes: "As a contribution to theological science, in
an age when vague speculation and philosophical
theories are bewildering all denominations of Chris-
tians, this work will be considered by all competent
judges to be both valuable and seasonable. Upon
several important and difficult subjects the author
has thrown a clear and valuable light which will
guide many a student through perplexities and diffi-
culties which he had long sought unsuccessfully to
explain. The editor frankly confesses that when
a student he would gladly have bartered half the
books in his library to have gained a single perusal
of these lectures; and he cannot refrain from ex-
pressing the belief that no young student of theology
will ever regret the purchase or perusal of Mr. Fin.
ney's lectures."

REV. JOHN MORGAN arrived at Oberlin in com-
pany with Mr, Finney, in 1835. He was then thirty-
two years of age, a native of Ireland, having been

DR. JOHN MORGAN.

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 283

brought to this country at the age of ten, trained as
a printer in eastern cities, prepared for college at
Stockbridge, Mass., and graduated at Williams, as
valedictorian, in 1826. He had taken no seminary
course, but studied theology some years in New
York. He was an instructor in the literary or
preparatory department of Lane Seminary, at the
time of the antislavery excitement there, and was
in entire sympathy with the students in their with-
drawal. His first appointment to Oberlin was as
professor of mathematics, but the call which he ac-
cepted was to the chair of the literature and exegesis
of the New Testament. This work he entered upon
at once, but his broad and thorough scholarship
enabled him to fill many a gap, upon emergency, in
the new college. There was not a study in the
entire curriculum in which he could not give instruc-
tion at an hour's warning, as successfully as if it were
his own specialty. But the New Testament was his
chosen field, and for this field his linguistic, histori-
cal and philosophical gifts and attainments abun-
dantly qualified him. He was no mere mechanical
or technical interpreter, but reached at once the soul
of the matter, where language and philosophy both
harmonize.

The influence of Professor Morgan in the enter-
prise was conservative in the best sense, not by
reason of any inertia or immobility of nature. His
enthusiasm, in any well-considered movement, was
always prompt, but his breadth of nature and
thought and knowledge gave him a view of all sides
of every question, and he could not hold an extreme

284 0 BERLIN.

position, or enjoy any extreme action. He could
patiently tolerate the extravagances of others, be-
cause of his kindliness and his hopefulness. Proba-
bly no one among the many instructors who have
been at Oberlin has held a larger place in the hearts
of all. For many years he was associated with Mr.
Finney in the pastorship of the church, preaching
once on the Sabbath, and more in Mr. Finney's
absence or ill health. Two years ago, at the age of
seventy-eight, he retired entirely from his work, and
since that time has been residing with a son and a
daughter in Cleveland. By all right he belongs to
Oberlin, and the benediction of his presence in these
latest years ought to rest upon us. He expended
his interest and his labor upon his classes, and rarely
felt that he was ready to commit his thoughts to
writing. Thus far he has given us no books. A
few valuable essays are all that we have from him in
this form. The " Baptism of the Holy Spirit" and
"Acceptable Holiness" were published in the
Oberlin Review , and an article on the " Atonement,"
in two parts, can be found in the Bibliotheca Sacra
for 1877-8.

Rev. Henry Cowles was called to the professor-
ship of languages at Oberlin, upon the resignation
of Mr. Waldo, and came in September, 1835. He
was born in Norfolk, Conn., in 1803, and was thirty-
two years of age when he came. He had graduated
at Yale, and taken his theological course there. He
completed the course in 1828, was ordained at
Hartford the same year, and came at once to North-
ern Ohio under appointment from the Connecticut

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 285

Home Missionary Society. He preached in Ash-
tabula and Sandusky, and after two years, having
received a call from the church in Austinburg, he
returned to his home in Connecticut, was married,
and commenced his work in Austinburg. From a
most successful pastorate of five years he came to
Oberlin, and found himself in full sympathy with all
the leading objects and aims of the work ; and from
the first day until the day of his death — a period of
forty-six years — he gave himself, without reserve, to
these objects. There seemed to be no thought of
himself or his personal interests ; no anxiety in
reference to position. His heart was in the work,
and all he asked was a place to lay out his strength.
In 1838 he took the chair of Church History in the
seminary, and of Hebrew and Old Testament Lit-
erature in 1840. In 1848, in consequence of strait-
ened means on the part of the college, and the
necessity of reducing expenses, he resigned his work
in the seminary, and took the editorship of the
Oberlin Evangelist, a work which he had shared
with others for some years preceding. From this
time until the close of 1862 he gave his thought and
heart to the Evangelist, and made it greatly what
it was, a treasury of religious thought and experi-
ence, and of practical life. The twenty-four volumes
of the Oberlin Evangelist, with which Professor
Cowles had more to do than any other man, give a
better exhibition of Oberlin thought and character
and work during those years than any definite
attempt to set them forth can possibly do.

When the Evangelist was closed up Professor

286 0 BERLIN.

Cowles was about sixty years of age, and might
naturally feel that the chief work of his life was
done; and it would have been a satisfactory work.
But the habit of communicating his thoughts to
others by writing was strong upon him, and by what
seemed a divine leading he entered upon the work
of writing commentaries upon the Scriptures. He
commenced with the parts of the Old Testament to
which he had given more particular attention as an
instructor, and went on, year after year, adding vol-
ume to volume, devoting to it all his energies and all
his resources, through a period of seventeen years.
In 1881 he issued the last volume, and then felt that
the Lord permitted him to depart in peace. His
work was done ; the result remains with us — a com-
mentary on the entire Scriptures, full of practical
wisdom and the ripe fruits of scholarship. He died
in September of the same year. The interests of
the college through all these years filled his heart
and hands. He was a member of the '; Prudential
Committee" and a trustee, in constant attendance
upon these duties, and often went out upon financial
missions in behalf of the college. His last public
duty was to attend the meeting of the trustees in
1881.

It would be much more satisfactory to give the
family life of these men, to look into their homes and
observe there the results of Christian character and
fidelity. By the side of each one of these men there
stood a woman of like spirit and faith, whose life in
the community was no less valuable ; and children
were gathered about them whose work and life it

DR. HENRY COWLES.

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 2%J

would be pleasant to follow, but this opens too
wide a field.

Rev. John P. COWLES, brother of Henry, was
called to Oberlin, in 1836, as Professor of Hebrew
and Old Testament Literature. He was a member
of the same class with his brother at Yale, and erad-
uated as valedictorian. He took up the work with
great heartiness and energy, and was in essential sym-
pathy with the Oberlin life and aims. Some of the
peculiarities which appeared did not command his
respect. The diet, and now and then a doctrine,
suffered from his sharp and sometimes sarcastic
criticism, and after two or three years he was asked
to retire. A little more gentleness on one side, and
more patience and tolerance on the other, would
have saved to the school an instructor of the ripest
scholarship and the highest ability, who was in har-
mony with all that was essential at Oberlin. For
many years he and his wife have been at the head of
the school for young women at Ipswich, Mass.

Another member of the same class, of 1826, at
Yale was ELIJAH P. BARROWS. He was elected
professor of Hebrew at Oberlin in 1835, Dut: did
not accept the appointment. After filling the same
chair at Western Reserve College, and again at An-
dover Seminary, in 1871 he took up the work at
Oberlin tendered him so long before, and carried it
forward with great acceptance nearly ten years, until
failing strength demanded rest. Dr. Barrows is still
among us, bearing the honors of a useful life and of
a cheerful old age.

Timothy B. Hudson came to Oberlin as a stu-

288 OBERLIN.

dent, in 1835, and entered the Sophomore class, hav-
ing been before in attendance at Western Reserve
College. He was at the time about twenty years of
age, an earnest and ambitious scholar, and of pro-
nounced personal influence and character. The grow-
ing school soon enlisted his services as a teacher, and
his relations as a pupil were interrupted. In 1838
he was elected Professor of the Latin and Greek
Languages, and performed the work until 1841 ; then
a more active life seemed necessary for his health,
and he resigned, and entered the service of the Ohio
Antislavery Society as a lecturer. After several
years of this service, holding conventions and lec-
turing throughout the State, he accepted in 1847 an
invitation to his former position at Oberlin, and
continued as Professor of Languages until his death
in 1858. He was a vigorous and impressive teacher
and disciplinarian, and a speaker of unusual power.
In the antislavery work he was very effective, and
especially he was helpful in the establishment of
the National Era at Washington, which was so ably
conducted for many years by Dr. Bailey. In the
college work every department and every interest
felt his influence. His vacations were often devoted
to financial work in behalf of the college, contribu-
ting materially to its support. Although his regular
course as a student was interrupted, he never ceased
to be a student, and in 1847 ne took his degree and
was formally numbered among the alumni of the
college. So far as his attainments were concerned
he might have had the degree ten years before, but
had not cared to ask it.

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 289

His death was tragic, and never fully explained.
He left Oberlin by the train, to go to Strongsville,
expecting to find conveyance from one of the sta-
tions nearest to Strongsville. At Olmstead station,
in attempting either to leave the train or to return
to it while it was moving, he was drawn along by the
side of the track and at length thrown under the
wheels. It was late in the evening and no one ob-
served him, until the engineer of a train ten minutes
later saw him lying on the track, but not in time
to arrest his train. It was a sad day at Oberlin
when the mangled remains were brought back to be
buried here. He was forty-three years of age at his
death.

George Whipple came with others from Lane
Seminary, in 1835, already a man of mature character
and judgment, and sound scholarship. At the com-
pletion of his theological course, in 1836, he was
elected principal of the preparatory department, and
in 1838 Professor of Mathematics, resigning in 1847,
to become Corresponding Secretary of the American
Missionary Association, organized the year before.
At Oberlin he rendered very valuable service, not
only as an instructor, but as a standing member of
the " Prudential Committee" having in charge the
business affairs of the college. For such responsi-
bilities his even, well-balanced judgment admirably
fitted him. The same clear judgment became after-
ward the strength of the Association to which he
devoted his life. The incessant work and care at
length broke down his strong constitution, and he
died in 1876, at the age of seventy-one, having seen

29O OBERLIN.

the Association advance from small beginnings to a
condition of great usefulness and prosperity.

James A. Thome was a member of the same
class in Lane, and came to Oberlin in 1835. He
was born in Augusta, Ky., the son of a slaveholder,
of Scotch Presbyterian ancestry. At the completion
of his course, in 1836, at the age of twenty-three, he
was commissioned with another gentleman, by the
American Antislavery Society, to visit the West
India Islands, and observe and report the results of
emancipation there. This mission he discharged with
great acceptance, and wrote a very interesting vol-
ume, which was published in 1838, and greatly aided
in the antislavery work in this country. The same
year, 1838, he was elected Professor of Rhetoric and
Belles Lettres at Oberlin, and held the chair with
acceptance and success until 1848, when he was
called to the pastorate of the First Congregational
Church of Cleveland. This position he held, in
abundant and successful labors, for twenty-three
years, retiring in 1 871, to engage in a new church
enterprise at Chattanooga, Tenn. After two years,
in the midst of these labors, he was struck down
with sudden disease, and died in March, 1873, at the
age of sixty years. In 185 1, soon after leaving Ober-
lin, he was elected a trustee of the college, and often
visited us to give a course of rhetorical instruction
to the college classes, or of pastoral lectures to the
students of the seminary, or to favor us with some
public address or discourse — services always most
welcome and profitable. He was a man eloquent in
Speech, pleasing and impressive in personal presence,

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK, 29 1

fearless as a soldier in duty, gentle and sensitive as
a woman in his respect for the feelings of others — a
true Christian man.

Mr. Amasa Walker, of North Brookfield, Mass.,
accepted, in 1842, an appointment to the professor-
ship of Political Economy ; not as a resident pro-
fessor, but to come every year and give a course of
lectures continuing through several weeks. The
same salary was credited to him as to other pro-
fessors, but there was never any less in the treasury
for his coming. Mr. Walker was trained as a busi-
ness man, in New England, and did not get his
theories from the schools; but he was as radical in
his advocacy of free trade and solid currency as
the most theoretical modern professor; and he
drew his illustrations of his principles from his own
wide experience and observation as a business
man.

In one respect he went beyond even Oberlin radi-
calism in his principles of reform. He was a " peace
man;" not an ultra " non-resistant," but he regarded
war, under all conditions, as sinful. His coming
was the occasion of earnest but friendly discussion
of the rightfulness of defensive war. It is interest-
ing to know that when the test came, in 1861, his
three sons entered the army and did valiant service,
with his full approval — not, as he afterward ex-
plained in a pamphlet, to engage in war, but to sus-
tain the government in the use of its police force to
execute the laws of the land. How often words
instead of principles separate those who seem to
differ. Mr. Walker published various pamphlets

292 OBERLIN.

and a text-book on Political Economy. He died
recently at his home in North Brookfield.

Two other names that have appeared in these
pages belong to this early period of Oberlin history,
those of Father Keep and Mr. Dawes.

Rev. John Keep was born in Long Meadow,
Mass., in 1781, graduated at Yale in 1802, was pas-
tor in Blandford, Mass., and in Homer, N. Y., from
1805 till 1833, when he came to Cleveland and be-
came pastor of a new church on the West Side.
While he was at Homer he had been a trustee of
Hamilton College and of Auburn Theological Semi-
nary, and was naturally interested in any educational
enterprise in the neighborhood. In 1834 he was
elected a trustee at Oberlin, and held the position
until his death in 1870. By reason of his years and
experience he was made president of the Board, and
had the responsibility of the casting vote on the
question of receiving colored students, in 1835.
From that day he took Oberlin on his heart, and
never laid it off unless when he laid off the earthly
life. His last words pertained to a letter he had
planned to write in the interest of the college. He
traversed the land to gather means to sustain it, and
crossed the ocean to save it in a crisis. In 1 850,
then seventy years of age, he removed to Oberlin,
and from that time his home was here. At every
meeting of the trustees he was present, and encour-
aged all by his hope and his faith. When others were
depressed he sustained and bore them on by his
cheerful courage, and thus he held on to the end of
his days. When more than fourscore years old he

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 293

would often come out at evening, with his lantern,
to find some one burdened with responsibility and
care, and cheer him up with a word of encourage-
ment. His sleep was sweeter after such a service.
He died in his eighty-ninth year, not from disease,
but because life was completed.

Mr. Wm. DAWES became a trustee of the college
in 1838, and at the same time made his home in
Oberlin. He had been a successful business man,
and upon visiting Oberlin he was greatly pleased
with the spirit of enterprise and work, on the part
of students and professors, which he witnessed on
every hand. He at once cast in his lot with them,
and through a period of twelve years he greatly
aided in sustaining the work by his financial ability
and personal influence. The mission to England
was a success, to a great extent through his strength
of purpose and personal force, his power to impress
others with his own convictions. His courage at
times seemed to amount almost to presumption, but
he rarely failed to estimate properly his oppor-
tunity. Others were not always able to work up to
his standard of faith. To keep the college from
debt he proposed that the salaries of the professors
should not constitute a legal claim, but that what-
ever came should be divided, and if there were any-
thing lacking it should not be a debt on the part of
the college. This was his view of the relations which
Christian workers should sustain to any benevolent
enterprise which they wrere carrying forward. It is
the principle applied in what is known in these days
as the " Faith Mission." The principle did not

294 OBERLW.

commend itself generally to the parties concerned,
and the plan was not adopted. Mr. Dawes had set
his heart upon this idea as the true Christian con-
ception, and he at length retired from further re-
sponsibility. He is passing a quiet old age, in full
possession of his faculties, at Fox Lake, Wis.

In this circle of devoted and consecrated men, one
was found who proved false, the only one during
the fifty years who has betrayed his trust or brought
scandal upon the cause. It is not necessary to name
him. He came in 1836, a graduate of Western Re-
serve College, and took his theological course at Ober-
lin, a young man of ability and promise and marked
influence. When the Evangelist was established he
was made office editor, and was appointed to other
posts of responsibility. It was a dark day in the
winter of 1843 when his hypocrisy and villainy and
vileness were disclosed. Imprisonment and other
penalties which followed did not change his charac-
ter. He became an exile, and lived for many years
and died in the remote south-western part of the
country, with no sign of essential reformation.

GEORGE N. ALLEN, whose work has been already
mentioned, was elected Professor of Music in 1841,
and of Natural History in 1847. He continued his
work until 1870. After retiring, he removed with
his family to Cincinnati, and died there in 1877, at the
age of sixty-five. He was buried in the Oberlin
Cemetery.

William Cochran came to Oberlin as a student,
in 1835, from Fredericktown, Ohio. He graduated
in 1839, an<3 took the theological course, completing

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 2Q$

it in 1842. The same year he was appointed Profes-
sor of Logic and Associate Professor of Intellectual
and Moral Philosophy. He had unusual powers
in the direction of philosophical inquiry and
thought, and was a very impressive preacher. A
series of articles in the Obcrlin Quarterly Review, of
which he was an editor, on the simplicity of moral
action, gives an example of his analytical powers,
and is still worthy of careful study. Professor Coch-
ran resigned in 1846, with the thought of entering
the profession of law. He died at Fredericktown
in 1847, at the age of thirty-three, and was buried in
the Oberlin Cemetery.

The prosperity of the college through all the fifty
years has depended upon the faithful and unpaid
services of its trustees, resident and non-resident,
some of whom have stood at their posts almost for a
lifetime, devising ways and means, and often meeting
a necessity from their own personal resources. The
only survivor of the nine original corporators is
Jabez L. Burrell of Oberlin. The only other surviv-
ors of those elected during the first ten years are
Wm. Dawes, already mentioned, and F. D. Parish
of Sandusky, who was elected in 1839, an<^ attended
every meeting, except one, when he was in Western
Virginia looking after the lands of the college, until
his resignation in 1878. He is now, at the age of
eighty-six, a resident of Oberlin. Among the non-
resident trustees who stood by the college through
evil report and good, was William Sears of Boston,
who before the railroad came west of Buffalo often
made the long journey to attend the meetings, and

296 0 BERLIN.

Samuel D. Porter, of Rochester, who was present in
every emergency with his wise and considerate
counsel. Of the resident trustees, Uriah Thompson
and Jabez W. Merrill have rendered the college
faithful service for many years, and still live to look
after its interests. Brewster Pelton removed to
Cleveland in 185 1, but retained his life-long interest
in Oberlin, and at his death, in 1872, left a be-
quest to the college of twenty-five thousand dollars.
Of the earliest inhabitants — the" Colonists" — few
remain. Several of the families, after a few years,
moved on to the farther West, some in the way of
general emigration, others to new colonies, as to
Olivet, Mich., and Tabor, Iowa. Peter P. Pease, the
first colonist, remained to the end, and died in 1861.
Josiah B. Hall performed a home missionary work,
for years, in the neighborhoods between Oberlin and
Elyria, established a settlement, a mile and a half
north-east, still called " New Oberlin," with the
thought of having there a subsidiary preparatory
school, and at length led the new colony to Tabor,
in 185 1. Wm. Hosford went to Olivet, in a similar
way, in 1845. Samuel Daniels, Isaac Cummings,
Philip James, Daniel Marsh and several others re-
moved early to other places in the vicinity, or to the
far West. Of all these, Philip James of Nebraska is
the only known survivor. Of the families that came
early and remained until the later years, the following
names will be recalled : Hamilton, Safford, Stevens,
Penfield, Ellis, Pease, Wack, Jones, McWade, Evans
and Leonard, on South Main Street; Turner, Steele,
Jennings, Taylor, Gaston, Wheat, Ryder, Little, Holts-

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 297

lander, Keep, Campbell, Campton, Leonard, Page,
Piatt and Bailey, on North Main Street; Ingersoll>
Johnson, Gerrish, Beckwith, Gaston, Cox, Burrell,
Clark, Kenaston and Crosby, on East College Street;
Parish, Rawson, Smith and Hawley, on West College
Street ; Pelton, Hill, Elmore, Watson, Bardwell and
Lamberton, on East Lorain Street ; Jewell, Cox, Hop-
kins, Hull, Kinney, Rossiter, Shepard and Matthews,
on West Lorain Street ; Weed, Hovey, Ells and Bar-
tholomew, on Pleasant Street; Kinney, Wright, But-
ler, Dutton and Fitch, on South Professor Street; Lin-
coln, Hall, Andrews and Pease, on North Professor
Street; Evans, Scott, Munson and Strauss, on Mill
Street ; Dodge and Copeland, on Morgan Street ; and
Dawes, Thompson, Cole, Bailey and Spees, in New
Oberlin. Other families within the limits mentioned
will doubtless be recalled ; but these suggest a vol-
ume of unwritten history, which it would be interest-
ing to linger upon.

Among other memories of the past, former stu-
dents will recall those with whom the term bills were
settled — the Treasurers of the college — Levi Burnell
from 1835 to 1841, Hamilton Hill from 1841 to
1865; and the Book-keeper of that period and of
later times, George P. Wyett; and George Kinney,
Treasurer from 1865 to 1875.

Nor will they forget those who spread their table
at the Ladies' Hall, the Stewards and Matrons — after
Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, Mr. and Mrs. David Campbell,
of Boston, in the days of Grahamism; Mr. and Mrs. G.
Fairchild of Brownhelm; Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Wright;
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Viets ; Mr. and Mrs. L. Herrick:

298 O BERLIN.

all in the old hall; and in the new, Mr. and Mrs. E. Fol-
lett ; Mr. and Mrs. George Kinney; and Mr. and Mrs.
M. Day, down to the present occupants. Thus far no
one has held the Stewardship longer than eight years,
but the limit is only traditional, not constitutional.

The principals of the Ladies' Department are nat-
urally associated with the Ladies' Hall, having had
their office there, and usually their personal apart-
ments. Besides Mrs. Dascomb, already spoken of,
Mrs. Alice W. Cowles, wife of Prof. Henry Cowles,
held the position from 1836 to 1840, Miss Mary
Ann Adams as assistant and as principal from 1839
to 1849, and Mrs. Mary C. Hopkins from 1850 to
1852. Of these Mrs. Hopkins, now living at Roches-
ter, N. Y., is the only survivor.

The limits of this volume will not permit any per-
sonal reference to the twenty thousand students who,
for a longer or shorter period, have enjoyed the bene-
fits of the school ; nor can any satisfactory record be
made of the alumni proper, those who have com-
pleted a course of study here. Of these, three hun-
dred and nunety-three have completed the theological
course, ten hundred and eleven the classical course,
and seven hundred and twenty-three the literary
course. Some of these have become distinguished,
and many of them have been useful.

It remains to mention a few that have been in-
structors in the college in later times, and have fin-
ished their work.

Henry E. Peck, of Rochester, N. Y., a graduate
of Bowdoin College, completed his theological course
at Oberlin,in 1845. After pastoral work in Roches*

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 299

ter until 1852, he was called to Oberlin as Professor
of Sacred Rhetoric and Associate in Mental and
Moral Philosophy. He held the position until 1865,
when, receiving an appointment from the Govern-
ment as Minister to Hayti, he accepted and went to
Port au Prince. In the second year of his residence
there, he died of the yellow fever. His remains
were afterwards brought to Oberlin for burial. Pro-
fessor Peck was not only interested in his college
work, which he performed with much acceptance,
but all the interests of the community, personal,
social, municipal, and political, commanded his atten-
tion. Many town improvements received their first
impulse from him. Many a struggling student or
citizen received from him a timely suggestion or
needed help ; and when the young men went to the
war, he saw them on their way, and visited them on
many a field. He had the rare faculty of doing
many things, and doing them well. Restless activity
was essential to his life.

Charles H. Penfield graduated at Oberlin in
1847. He was an Oberlin boy, brought up here from
his early childhood. In 1848 he was appointed tutor
in Latin and Greek in college; in 1855, Professor of
Latin, and in 1866, Professor of Greek, resigning in
1870. For several years past he has been Professor
of Greek in the Central High School of Cleveland.

REV. HlRAM MEAD, a native of Vermont, edu-
cated at Middlebury and at Andover, pastor nine
years at South Hadley, Mass., and two years at
Manchester, N. H., was called to Oberlin, in 1869,
as Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral The-

300 OBERLIN'.

ology. He entered upon the work with all his
heart, and was very helpful in bringing up the
seminary from the depression which it had suffered
after the war. Council Hall grew up under his ener-
getic and persistent and successful work. His pres-
ence here attracted the endowment of the Holbrook
professorship. The beautiful hymn and tune book
in which we rejoice, derived much of its excellence
from his taste and experience and labor. The
disease from which he died appeared to result from
a fall upon the sidewalk one winter morning. An
internal tumor was developed, and he died in May,
1 88 1, at the age of fifty-four.

Rev. John B. Perry was called to the professor-
ship of Natural Science in 1871. He was a gradu-
ate of the Vermont University, and had taken a
theological course at Andover. After several years
in the pastoral work, he was appointed assistant
of Professor Agassiz, in the Museum of Comparative
Zoology, at Cambridge. He accepted the appoint,
ment at Oberlin, contemplating a five months' course
of lectures each year, while still retaining his con-
nection with the Museum, and having his home at
Cambridge. He gave his course at Oberlin in the
spring and summer of 1872, and died at his home in
Cambridge, in October of the same year, at the age
of forty-six.

William H. Ryder succeeded Professor Penfield
in the Chair of Greek, in 1870. He was brought up
at Oberlin from a child, and graduated at the college^
completing his theological course at Andover. He
had been preaching some years in Wisconsin, when he

THOSE WHO HAVE SHARED IN THE WORK. 301

was called to Oberlin. He filled the position with
great success for seven years, when he resigned to
accept a call from the Congregational Church at
Ann Arbor, Mich., where he still remains.

WILLIAM K. Kedzie was elected, in 1878, as the
successor of Dr. Dascomb in the department of Chem-
istry. He was the son of Robert C. Kedzie, of the
class of 1847, Professor of Chemistry in the Agri-
cultural College of Michigan. Having been his
father's pupil and assistant in the laboratory from a
child, he graduated at the Agricultural College, and
afterward pursued chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific
School. He had been several years Professor of
Chemistry in the Kansas Agricultural College when
he accepted the call to Oberlin. Under his super-
intendence the new laboratory was fitted up, and
the new methods of instruction introduced. He
died after two years of enthusiastic and successful
work, at the age of twenty-eight.

Rev. Samuel H. Lee, in 1878, accepted a finan-
cial secretaryship in behalf of the college, with the
professorship of Political Economy, coming from
the pastorate of the First Congregational Church of
Cleveland. After three years of faithful and success-
ful service he resigned to resume the pastoral work.

Those who have been principals of the prepara-
tory department since 1845 are a^ still living.
Henry E. Whipple, appointed in 1846, was called
in 1853 to a professorship at Hillsdale College, Mich.,
and is now living at Mendocino, Cal.

Edward H. FAIRCHILD graduated at Oberlin in
1838; took the theological course here, and con-

302 0BERL1N.

tinued in the pastoral work until his call to Qberlin
in 1853. He held the position of principal until
1869, when he resigned to accept the presidency of
Berea College, Ky. Two or three years of this time
he was engaged in the financial work of the college.

ROSELLE T. CROSS graduated at Oberlin in 1867,
held the principalship from 1869 to 1874, and re-
signed to take up pastoral work. He is now preach-
ing in Denver, Col. Rev. James H. LAIRD, of the
college class of i860 and Theological class of 1864,
succeeded Mr. Cross in 1874, and resigned in 1877 to
resume the pastoral work. He has been pastor in
Andover, Mass., the last five years. Of the many
tutors in this department, no student of the years
1842-53 will forgot Nelson W. Hodge, who was
the presiding genius of the Latin and Greek recita-
tion rooms during that period. He was a graduate
of 1838, and resigned in 1853 to ta^e UP farming at
the West. He is living at Ripon, Wis.

Those who are now living and actively engaged
in the work do not naturally appear in these records.
Of the whole number of instructors during the fifty
years, only four have died while in active connection
with the college.

That such a body of able men, of varied gifts and
attainments, preachers, teachers, writers and business
men, should have been gathered and held in connec-
tion with the enterprise, under such disadvantages,
according to the ordinary apprehension of the case,
is to be explained in part by a divine overruling
which brought them, and by the strong attraction
of the work itself, which retained them. It has been

THOSE IVIIO HAlTE SHARED IN THE WORK. 303

no unusual thing that men have left larger salaries in
coming to Oberlin, and have remained against the
offer of larger salaries.

The importance and magnitude of the work have
also had much to do in making it possible for men
of such diverse education and habits of thought —

o

gathered from so many different schools, with widely
diverging views, engaged in an enterprise involving
so many new and untried features, with little experi-
ence and few traditions to guide them — to work
together in essential harmony during the fifty years.
There have been earnest discussions and pronounced
differences, but no quarrels, no factions, no aliena-
tions. The momentum of the work itself has seemed
to overrule minor perturbations. But above all a
divine ordering has been conspicuous, from the
small beginning in 1833, to this our Jubilee Year.
" Except the Lord build the house, they labor in
vain that build it."

APPENDIX.

EARLY LETTERS.

P. P. Stewart to J. J. Shipherd.

Elyria, Feb. 4, 1833.
Very dear Brother:

Your letter of the twenty-sixth ult. to Mrs. Ship-
herd, which came to hand on the second inst., greatly
comforted us concerning your continued health and
other favorable circumstances. We have been wait-
ing with much solicitude to know how you would
succeed in your agency in that part of the country
where you now are. We have supposed that some-
thing could be determined as to the final result of
your efforts in behalf of the seminary, from a few
weeks' labor in that vicinity. From your letter we
are led to conclude that since you left Rochester you
have increased your subscription but one hundred
dollars. From your success previously we had ex-
pected more from these places you have since vis-
ited. But in looking at the indications of Providence
we must regard them as a whole, and then inquire
what our duty is concerning them. We have now
fairly put our hand to the plough, and must not look
back, that is if we have done it understandingly and

3<d6 oberlix.

in the fear of God. The objects contemplated in the
establishment of the institution appear to me as
much in accordance with the genius of the Gospel
as heretofore. For these very objects Christians are
continually praying. Then the question arises, will
God hear and answer our prayers if they be not ac-
companied with our labors and charities?

Previous to receiving your letter from Rochester,
which contained an order for one hundred and sixty-
six dollars, I had obtained a renewal of the note
at the bank by paying fifty dollars. My own health
is better than when I wrote you last. Mrs. Stewart's
is not as good. You doubtless feel anxious to know
what is likely to result from the machine. You will
probably be surprised to know that I have done very
little about it since you left. I may have acted in-
judiciously, but have done what seemed to be duty.
The way did no': seem prepared to apply horse
power to the machine during the winter. Under
these circumstances it seemed necessary that I
should do what I could to curtail the expenses of
the family. . . .

The circumstances of my turning my attention
from the planing machine to the making of stoves
may have the appearance of fickle-mindedness, and I
will not pretend that my character stands entirely
free from such a blemish. But there is an overlook-
ing Providence, which often guides us very different-
ly from our own intentions, or wishes. I regarded
it as a very undesirable circumstance that I was
obliged to occupy my time in procuring a stove, and
if I had had the funds at command I should have pur-

APPENDIX. 307

chased one at once ; but as it has turned out I can-
not but hope that great benefit will result to the
community, especially to that part in moderate cir-
cumstances.

I am still of the opinion that the machine will be
valuable if it can be got into operation, but it seems
necessary that my time should be occupied about the
stove, for a while at least. Several families in this
village are wishing to purchase a cooking-stove, and
are anxious that this should be perfected and tested
before they buy. Among these are the three fam-
ilies of the Iron Company. There is a prospect now
of its having the preference at this furnace. The
making of patterns is a new business to me. I
make but slow progress, but there are no pat-tern
makers in the place that I know of, and if there were
I have no money to pay them. . . .

I find that the circumstance of our inducing so
many Christian families to locate together is made
use of by those not very friendly to the object, as
an objection to the plan. I would suggest for your
consideration the question whether it would not do
to dispose of some of the colonial lands to per-
sons of a certain character who are not pious.
The by-laws might be of such a character as to se-
cure the interests of the institution. This might be
better than to have the colony very small, and sur-
rounded by a corrupt and irreligious population.
Perhaps we ought not to depend to any considerable
extent upon the colonists to sustain the institution,
because we should want to secure for it the sympa-
thies and fostering care of all the churches in this

308 OBERLIN.

region. It might be well for you to ascertain
whether Street and Hughes would have any objec-
tion to persons paying to the Institution a certain
percentage on the land which they shall respectively
take up. I have no doubt there will be much preju-
dice excited against the enterprise by the hasty and
injudicious remarks of professed friends of the cause,
and this will probably be done to some extent by
those who are the real disciples of Christ. A cir-
cumstance apparently of a very unfavorable charac-
ter has recently occurred in this place. Mr. C,
the agent of the Western Reserve College, came
here to solicit funds for that institution. In three
prominent instances he failed of obtaining sub-
scriptions on account of the colony. The persons
were Capt. R., Mr. T., and Mr. J. They were
pressed very hard, but maintained firmly their
ground, saying that they believed the money they
had to give, under existing circumstances, could do
more in the Oberlin Institute than otherwise. What
Mr. C. knew about the plan of the colony I know
not, or from what source he obtained his informa-
tion. He did not, however, hesitate to express his
most decided disapprobation of the plan. The cir-
cumstance of congregating a large number of Chris-
tian families in one neighborhood, he urged as a
most objectionable feature. This man travelling
from place to place will probably occasion many pre-
possessions unfavorable to the enterprise. You re-
marked in one of your letters that Oberlin would rise
by the hardest labor. This may be true ; probably is.
But if it is the work of the Lord, it matters not how

APPENDIX. 309

much labor is required. If it is a privilege to labor
for the Lord: and we are to depend on him for di-
rection, the question how much labor we shall per-
form about one thing is of very little importance.
The discountenance that some may give to our man-
ner of laboring, or the virulent opposition of others,
should never discourage us, or turn us aside from the
course which the word of God and the indications
of his providence point out. In regard to the man-
ner of raising funds I think it is greatly to be de-
sired that they should come from the Christian com-
munity ; that is, for the most part. After obtaining
what we can from this source, and the Lord should
succeed some of our other plans, we shall still find
use for all, or if the Lord bring in something soon
from some of our own devices, we should not, of
course, reject it; but what I have more particularly
in view is the importance of securing a deep interest
in the hearts of Christians. If many give, and give
as they ought, many prayers will be secured for the
institution and the colony. This is impressed on
my mind as a point of very great importance. . . .
Yours truly and affectionately,
P. P. Stewart.

P. P. Stewart to Fayette Shipherd,
Troy, N. Y.

Elyria, O., May 21, 1833.
Very dear Brother :

. . . Brother John J. will be anxious to hear
from us, especially since his children have fallen
under our care.

3IO OBERLIN.

Ere this we conclude sister Shipherd is in Ball-
ston. She started the last of April, but was delayed
a little in Cleveland.

The children appear perfectly contented under
Mrs. Stewart's care, and on the whole we think
they are doing very well.

As to Oberlin matters, they are progressing slow-
ly. There are some things I have to say, which will
probably meet you with some surprise. The steam-
engine is not on the ground, as some colonists who
have recently arrived supposed it would be. It
is not expected to be there before the first of Oc-
tober.

The Board of Trust have concluded to purchase
one of Mr. Andrews, of Cleveland. If the Board
had concluded to make a contract for an engine im-
mediately after their first meeting, it might probably
have been obtained a little sooner. But the requi-
site funds were not provided, and even now we have
not the amount which Mr. Andrews requires at the
time he commences the work, viz., three hundred
dollars. Your place could not be sold for ready
money, and I shall be obliged to borrow something
more from the Institute to pay Mr. Guthrie.

Brethren Ayers, Hall, Gibbs, Morgan and Safford
have arrived. They are considerably disappointed
in regard to the saw-mill. They say you encouraged
them to expect to see the engine on the ground, at
the time they should arrive there. You will recol-
lect that to lay a plan is not the same thing as to
carry it into execution. Brother Pease has been on
the ground about four weeks. He has four hands

APPENDIX. 3 1 I

at work ; has chopped over about five acres. It is
thought best to put up a part of the boarding-house,
and transport the lumber from Captain Redington's
mill. With our best efforts, I am confident the work
will not go on as fast as you have calculated, and it
seems to me that we ought studiously to avoid rais-
ing expectations which cannot be realized. A few
instances of this kind will do much to destroy the
confidence of the community in the men and in
the enterprise. Colonists who have come on say that
Brother J. J. S. has given the pledge that young
men who come on from the East shall receive as
good an education for a minister, as if they had
been at college. The constitution says that the
pupils of the Oberlin Institute shall receive a thor-
ough academic course. This is all I have expected
they would receive, and all I think that we ought to
promise. After they shall have been at the Insti-
tute a suitable length of time to prepare for college,
I have supposed they would go to Hudson, or to
some other institution where they can enjoy the
privileges of the manual labor system. Let stu-
dents come to this institution with the expectation
of obtaining a collegiate education, or what is equiv-
alent to it, and find the advantages far inferior to
those which are to be enjoyed at other institutions,
and the result would be disappointment and prob-
ably dissatisfaction.

Ail who shall have been at this institution will be
criticised with great severity, and if their education
shall fall short of the pledge that was given, bad
consequences must follow. If we have in addition

312 OBERLIN.

to a common manual labor school, a female semi-
nary, and a system of labor connected with that
also, I think this is all that we ought to attempt
at present. By attempting too much, the whole
work will be likely to come to nothing. We are
still in Elyria. I have hired the red blacksmith shop
and the house that belongs to it.

This I have done to perfect the stove, iron stoves,
etc. We seem to be needed on the ground ; but it
seems also very important that we remain here the
present summer at least. Individuals in different
places have offered to exert themselves to bring the
stove into notice, if we will send them one for inspec-
tion. I have had the greater part of four stoves
cast, and find that iron patterns must be obtained
before much can be done, or those which are made
of wood must be ironed in such a manner that they
will not warp and spring, when put into warm damp
sand. To prepare patterns for a cooking stove is a
slow and difficult work. But I think, and others
think, that the plan, of the stove is superior to any
one in this part of the country. The first impres-
sion on the part of those who examine it is uni-
formly favorable.

This is a very encouraging circumstance. If there
were not reason to fear that we should fall short in
regard to funds, I should think differently about
our going immediately on to the colony grounds.
But the stoves cannot be made a source of profit to
the Institution, without employing considerable
time in preparing the patterns. And if the stoves
should succeed, that is, if they should be approved

APPENDIX. 3 1 3

by those who first use them, the sale of twenty the
present year will probably prepare the way for the
sale of double and triple that number the next
year. Perhaps I am criminally defective in confi-
dence in regard to the collection of funds. I have
very much feared, and do still, that we shall be strait-
ened for the means to carry into execution the work
which we have undertaken. If the work is the
Lord's, he will doubtless provide the means of car-
rying it on. But our own skill and sagacity must be
employed. . . .

Yours truly and affectionately,

P. P. Stewart.

From J. J. Shipherd.

Ballston, N. Y., May 28, 1833.
To the Tritstees of the Oberlin Institute,
Beloved Brethren:

Evidence is daily increasing that God designs to do
great things for the Mississippi Valley, through our
seminary. We ought therefore to feel that a vast
trust is committed to our hands, and exert ourselves
to the uttermost, to accomplish the Lord's great
work in the speediest and most effectual manner.
That we should be of one mind is of first impor-
tance, and of the same mind which was also in
Christ Jesus. Let us constantly wait at his feet for
instruction, and show ourselves one in him, and
with him in wisdom, sanctification, and redemption.
Of all our weighty responsibilities, the heaviest obvi-

314 OB E KLIN.

ously is the appointment of teachers. Upon me, as
your agent, of course, depends the peculiar respon-
sibility of recommending them. Feeling the weight
of this responsibility, I have looked to the Searcher
of hearts for direction in my choice, and have advised
with the best counsellors among the thousands
whom I have met in my journeyings. At length,
having travelled some two thousand miles, visited
various seminaries, and maturely settled my mind,
I recommend the following appointments: I. I rec-
ommend that you invite the Rev. Samuel R. Hall,
Principal of the Teachers' Seminary, of Andover,
Mass., to become the President of the Oberlin Insti-
tute. You probably already know something of his
reputation, although he has been publicly known
but a little time. He was a pastor in Concord, Vt.,
for about nine years, and during most of the time
the principal of an academy, which he there founded
and rendered unusually flourishing and useful. He
there wrote his lectures on School Keeping, since
published at Boston, and widely circulated as the
best work on education extant. The Legislature of
New York have obtained of him ten thousand copies
for gratuitous distribution.

He has recently published another volume of lec-
tures on Female Teachers, etc., and several other
popular works, mostly school-books.

His present station indicates the estimate placed
upon him by the trustees of the Teachers' Semi-
nary, Andover, Mass., among whom are men best
qualified to judge. Many applied for the superin-
tendence of that seminary, but were all rejected in

APPENDIX. 3 I 5

favor of Mr. Hall, who did not ask the station, but
when invited to it, declined ; afterward, however,
yielding to repeated solicitations. At the head of
that seminary, he has been constantly rising for two
and a half years, and raising the institution till it
now numbers about one hundred and fifty students.
I spent a few days with him, in his school and out,
and confidently recommend him as better qualified
to superintend our institution than any man I have
met, or heard of who can be obtained ; and indeed I
know of no one, could we obtain him, in whom
there is more of what we want, than in Mr. Hall,
for, I. His piety is more like the Divine Teacher's
than usual. He labors with his might to do good
in school and out. 2. He is better acquainted with
the art of teaching than any one I can find, having
studied it diligently for many years. 3. His educa-
tion, although not collegiate, is sufficiently extensive,
much more profound than is usual with graduates
from our best colleges. 4. He is a manual labor
man. 5. He is of suitable age, thirty-eight years.
6. He is a practical teacher, makes everything a stu-
dent learns useful to him. 7. He does not teach
for money, but to do good. 8. He is deeply inter-
ested in the West. 9. His government excels any
I am acquainted with. He teaches his pupils to
govern themselves ; and, 10. I think he would, to in-
crease his usefulness, accept your invitation. Mr,
Hall could not consistently leave Andover for Ohio
till the Fall of 1834, but should be elected as soon
as consistent, and aid in all our plans for buildings,
teachers, apparatus, etc. The architect should di«

3l6 0 BERLIN.

rect in laying the corner-stone, and should you elect
him, he says he wishes at least six months, after
resigning his charge at Andover, to visit the best
literary institutions of our land, and otherwise qual-
ify himself for his responsible station. His salary
is now about twelve hundred dollars annually, but
I advise that you offer him four hundred dollars,
with the use of a dwelling house and a few acres of
land, his pasturage, hay for his horse and two cows,
and his wood, and that we defray the expense of his
removal with his family to Ohio, which will probably
be about one hundred to one hundred and twenty-
five dollars. This will be about as good as one thou-
sand dollars at Andover, and I think he is willing to
act upon Oberlin principles. In the second place, I
recommend that you elect Mr. James K. Shipherd,
Principal of Thetford Academy, Vt, Professor of
Languages in the Oberlin Institute, and commit to
him the superintendence of the seminary till Mr.
Hall arrive and enter upon the duties of his office.
I cannot speak as freely of this gentleman as the
former, for he is my brother. However, I can say?
I do not recommend him because he is my brother,
but because I think him better qualified than any
other one we can obtain for the place. He was in
good standing in college (Middlebury, Vt.), unusually
successful in common-school teaching, and is now
highly esteemed as Principal of Thetford Academy,
Vt. He took charge of that academy when it was in a
low state, and has caused it, in a scientific and moral
sense, to flourish more than for many years before.
The trustees of that seminary desire him to engage

APPENDIX. 3 1 7

with them for ten years, and are extremely unwilling
to part with him. Several of his scholars expect to
enter our Institute the first of December next, and
expressed to me the desire that he should be elected,
as I now propose. He is young, twenty-two and
one half years of age, decidedly pious, studious, par-
ticularly in the science of teaching, loves to teach,
practical in teaching, very successful in government,
a manual labor man, and although well pleased with
his present location, would, I think, accept the ap-
pointment I propose, should you think it best to
make it. I advise that you offer him three hundred
dollars salary, with his board, till he shall marry, and
then a house, etc., like the President's.

In the third place, I advise that you invite Miss
Louisa Gifford, assistant in the Geneva Female Sem-
inary, N. Y., to become teacher of the female de-
partment. Last winter I requested Mrs. Ricord,
the Principal of that seminary, to recommend a
teacher for our manual labor female school. I had
previously learned that her school was scarcely, if at
all, excelled, and fully acquainted her with our plans
and circumstances. She, evidently feeling her re-
sponsibility, and acting understanding^, recom-
mended the Miss Gifford whom I now propose. I
have not time to describe her definitely, but believe
we shall be safe in taking her at Mrs. Ricord's rec-
ommendation. Besides I saw her considerably, and
think her best qualified for the place of any lady
whom we can obtain. So think the best of judges
at Geneva.

As our female school will be small for a season, I

3 1 8 OBERLW.

propose that we offer her one hundred dollars a year
and her board.

In the fourth place, I recommend that you elect
Dr. James Dascomb, of Boscawen, N. H., lecturer,
and professor of chemistry, botany, physical educa-
tion or anatomy, and natural philosophy. Dr. Das-
comb is a young physician of promise, a pupil of
Dr. Mussey of Dartmouth College, said by him to
be decidedly the best scholar in his class of fifty
members. He is highly recommended by Mr. Hall,
whom I nominate as President, as a Christian, a phy-
sician and lecturer. Brother Hall and I think that
the physician of the colony should be a lecturer in
the seminary, because we can't afford a full salary to
such a lecturer, or full employment to a physician.

I propose that we offer him two hundred and fifty
dollars salary. His practice as physician and duties
as a lecturer will no more interfere with each other
than those of Dr. Mussey and others who not unfre-
quently practise as physicians, and serve as professors
in colleges.

I desire a decision upon Dr. Dascomb's case soon,
because I wish to secure a physician to our colony
and seminary, and he will need considerable time to
prepare for the duties of his professorship. Besides,
he will, if not invited, soon be so settled that he
will not accept our invitation. He will not, if
elected, probably enter upon his professorship till
Brother Hall does upon his presidency, say Septem-
ber, 1834. My brother and Miss Gifford should be,
if invited at all, requested to enter upon their duties
by the first of December next, and they may sustain

APPENDIX. 319

the school till Brothers Hall and Dascomb join
them. This may (and yet I hope it will not) seem
premature. I believe it is safe and best, and for the
following reasons : We can obtain the requisite
funds. For evidence of this see my previous commu-
nications, and add to the evidence they afford the
fact that should my life be spared till September
next, I shall in all probability fill out our colony,
and through that means and others increase our
subscription to at least ten thousand dollars. I pro-
pose also that some efficient agent be appointed to
aid me in collecting funds. I have some hope that
my brother's church (Troy, N. Y.) will release him
for a season. I am also negotiating with a Mr
Mills, of Dumbarton, N. H. Whether either of them
can be obtained before Fall, or at all, I know not, but
I hope one of them, or some other one well qualified,
can be secured. A good agent is rarely found.

That we can raise the fifteen thousand dollars
contemplated I am confident, and I believe my con-
fidence is well founded. The wise and good uni-
formly approve our plans, and have aided, and
express a determination yet more to aid, in execut-
ing- them. To fill out the fifteen thousand dollars
will doubtless be much easier than to do what,
through the grace of God, we have already ex-
ecuted. This amount will provide for one hundred
students, whose tuition will pay the salaries recom-
mended. Tuition may be fifteen dollars a year,
that is, fifteen hundred dollars in all, and the sala-
ries I recommend with board amount only to eleven
hundred and fifty.

320 OBERLIX.

That we can have one hundred students in Sep-
tember, 1834, cannot be doubted. There are mul-
titudes of them desiring such privileges, and unless
we provide them many of them can never enjoy
them. You can build what will be necessary for
the commencement of the academic department by
the first of December next, and during the succeed-
ing year enlarge so as to employ Brothers Hall and
Dascomb as proposed. That teachers may be on
the ground when needed, they should be elected as
soon as consistent, especially those who commence
the school, viz., my brother and Miss Gifford, if you
should see fit to appoint them, and they to accept.
You perceive in my recent communications that I
have latterly enlarged our plans of operation, and it
may seem to you unadvisedly, but I trust the follow-
ing reasons will satisfy you all : The manual labor
system requires that the student be carried through
his whole course. If the institution be a mere pre-
paratory school for college, the students are always
mere apprentices in manual labor, and the benefits
of the system are realized but in a small degree.
Should we fit them for college only, there is no
institution to which we could send them where
their manual labor facilities would be continued
equal to Oberlin.

Hudson, for want of land, can never render the
manual labor of students extensively productive for
their support. The Lane Seminary has and can
have but little land, and is full and will be full with-
out our students. Moreover, the Principal of the
Oneida Institute assured me that a large farm was

APTEXDIX. 32 1

indispensable to great success in extensive opera-
tions, and that the student should be carried
through his whole course. Again, the making of
our seminary equal to an academy, college, and theo-
logical seminary will not at all curtail the useful-
ness of Hudson and others ; for if we will furnish
such advantages as I propose, students will fill our
seminary who would never enter those now in ex-
istence.

The revivals of three years past have brought hun-
dreds of youth into our churches who desire to be
educated for the ministry and other useful services,
who will not incur debt necessary in such a course
as they must pursue at any institutions now in being
in our country. This I know from actual conference
with youth at the East. Hundreds of promising
youth will doubtless be educated for God's service,
or not educated, as we shall or shall not provide for
them the means of complete education by their own
industry and economy. Moreover, it is about as
easy to obtain requisite funds, etc., for a complete
education, as for one merely elementary. For the
amount of the subscription usually corresponds with
the character of the institution for which it is raised,
and students would not go so far westward merely
for an academic course. Let us therefore begin with
the academic, and, as Providence permit, grow into
the collegiate and theological, which, I doubt not,
will be as fast as our students shall advance in their
studies. Had we to raise the ordinary permanent
fund for president's and professors' salaries, we
should fail, but the assurance of all the students we

322 OBERLIN.

can accommodate is as good a pledge for their sala-
ries as permanent funds. What enlargement I have
made in our plans, the development of facts has
made necessary.

From J. J. Shipherd.

Boston, Mass., Aug. 9, 1833.
To the Trustees of the Oberlin Institute.
Dear Brethren :

I hoped long before this to have received a full an-
swer to my last long and important communication.
I have only heard that you sustained my nomination
of my brother, J. K. Shipherd. He has declined.
The trustees of the academy he now instructs will
not at all consent to his leaving them. Being about
to return to Ohio, and under the necessity of finding
some one to fill my brother's place, I have visited
Andover Theological Seminary, and engaged, if you
approve, Mr. Seth H. Waldo, who I believe will suc-
ceed as well as my brother. He will have to leave
the seminary in his Senior year, but I can nowhere
else find the man we want, and the Faculty of the
seminary consent to his leaving. They, the present
and collegiate classmates of Mr. Waldo, and S. R.
Hall, in whose Teachers' Seminary Mr. W. has
taught, all recommend him. I shall not therefore
describe him particularly. He has taught occasion-
ally.for twelve years, and with success, both in com*
mon schools and academies. He is about thirty
years of age. Should he go, he is to have four

APPENDIX. $2$

hundred dollars salary, and fifty dollars for his ex-
penses to the ground. Being, like all others, in debt
for his education, he cannot consistently engage for
a less sum. The fifty dollars for his expenses may
properly be taken from the outfit money which I am
collecting. The four hundred dollars must be raised
by tuition. Forty scholars, at one half the tuition
which the students of the Oneida Institute pay, will
pay the four hundred dollars. The forty we can
unquestionably have, if room can be made for them.
If not, the smaller number must pay higher tuition.
This must ever be our rule. Students must pay such
tuition as will raise our teachers' salaries. This rule
has worked well at the Oneida Institute for years.
It is not safe except in manual labor schools. If
you approve the nomination and conditions, please
forward as soon as may be an official invitation,
with a pledge of the four hundred and fifty dollars,
which I am willing to be personally responsible for,
and direct to Seth H. Waldo, Andover Theological
Seminary, Andover, Mass. As he has seen me only
of the Board, please express your readiness to re-
ceive him as a brother, and sustain him as a teachef.
My invitation to him, which I desire you to ratify,
is that he take charge of the Oberlin Institute till
it assume a collegiate character, and then if experi-
ment prove that he is qualified, that he fill the pro-
fessorship of languages. If I mistake not, he will
prove the man we shall need at first and permanently.
I am happy to find that prejudices against our en-
terprise are wearing away, and there is increasing
evidence that it is the Lord's good work, and will

324 0 BERLIN*.

prosper. I have recently developed the plan fully
to the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge of this city, and obtained
his unqualified approbation of it — from the Infant
School to the Theological Seminary. His opinion is
probably as valuable at that of any American.

He has travelled extensively in Europe with refer-
ence to education, spent about a year at Fellenberg's
celebrated school at Hofwyl in Switzerland, was
favorably noticed by literary men and societies in
Europe, has published a most valuable geography,
now edits the American Annals of Education, the
first work on that subject in our land. In short he
makes, and has for many years made, education the
subject of his study and object of his effort. While
the distinctive features of our plan are objected to
by some, the ablest men and the most experienced
teachers that I have met fully and decidedly approve
them. We have only to trust in God, and go for-
ward with diligence and zeal, and we may greatly
bless the perishing millions of the West. Being so
distant from you I have been compelled to do what
I should not, without your previous approbation, had
I been near, but trust I shall find on my return that
we are one in judgment as well as one in heart. If
the Lord will I shall see Oberlin between the fifteenth
and twentieth of September next. That the Lord
may permit us to meet in peace and labor together
"with one mind and with one accord," is the prayer
of

Your fellow servant and brother,

John J. Shipherd.

APPENDIX. 325

From J. J. Shipherd.

Utica, Aug. 23, 1833.

Dearly Beloved Parents :

I write you under circumstances of interest which
cannot be expressed by letter. I left Ballston, with
my dear wife and babe, on Monday morning last,
and arrived here Tuesday night — thus far prospered
of the Lord on our journey. Wednesday morning
brother Fayette and sister Collins arrived from the
West, and last evening I had the privilege of binding
them together with a cord which death only can
sunder. I rejoice that my dear brother is well mar-
ried. I am happy to call his Elmina sister, and doubt
not my loved parents will readily receive her into
their hearts as a daughter. Esther and I know her
worth, and believe it to be rare, of vastly greater
value to brother in his ministry than the wealth and
estimables of some city ladies, whom others might
have chosen. I hope you will soon enjoy the privi-
lege of judging for yourselves. We part to-morrow
morning, they for the East, and we for the West.
In parting with them, I seem to be leaving my loved
parents, and all my dear eastern friends. I have not
before seemed to be separated from you. I have
hitherto been like a ship in port, frequently visited,
but now I seem like one whose deck is well-nigh
cleared, but still bound fast by a cable to its native
port, and yet its swelling canvas urging it to a far-
off ocean. Yes, loved parents, I feel much of that
which swells the bosom of him who casts his last

326 0 BERLIN.

lingering look upon the home of his childhood, clus-
tered around with the endearments of parental, filial,
fraternal and other tender associations, and then
looks abroad upon a distant land unwelcome and
desolate, because the dear ones left behind are not
there. Since I began this letter I have had a desper-
ate struggle with my Shipherd heart, but thanks be
unto God who giveth me the victory. I previously
hoped that in a gospel sense I "should henceforth
know no one after the flesh," but " the fondness of
a creature's love, how strong it strikes the sense,"
and how malignant that arch foe who, vanquished
once, soon renews his attacks.

But for Him who succors them that are tempted, I
might be overcome, and relinquish Oberlin for per-
sonal enjoyment among my kindred. But through
Christ strengthening me, I can bid you all farewell,
and urge on my great and good work till my Master
shall bid me rest. . . .

Take, dear parents, to yourselves, and present to
our dear sister and niece, and duly to others, the
love of your affectionate children—

John and Esther.

From J. J. Shipherd.

Oberlin, Dec. 13, 1833.
Dearest of Parents :

I have before me two precious letters, written by
your dear, dear hands, and received at the hands of
Brother Reed, and Middleton. They have been be-

APPENDIX. 327

fore me these two weeks, glowing with parental love,
and waking up in my soul filial affection, but I could
not answer them till now, without sacrificing my
Master's important interests in Oberlin. I say hon-
estly, dear parents, you live in the warmest chamber
of my heart, and I feel grieved, but not guilty, that
I have, not written you before. I have been and am
yet pressed out of measure with Oberlin duties.
The great Pilot of Zion has committed to my poor
hand the helm of a noble ship, which is in the midst
of breakers, and laden with Zion's precious treasures.
It has seemed to me that in these circumstances I
might not let go the helm even to seize the pen in
behalf of my beloved parents, or any friend however
dear.

Do you ask then if Oberlin has possessed my heart
instead of those who gave me birth, and blessings
numberless? Oberlin is Christ's, and much as I love
father and mother, Christ is dearer than both
and all on earth beside. . . . We have lived some
two months in a basement room of the Oberlin In-
stitute fifteen feet square — some weeks of the time
with another family, and three or four boarders, and
Esther without a girl. Now we have great latitude,
for we have that room alone — Eliza Branch excepted
— and I have one over it for a study and secretary's
office in common with the principal. Esther and I
have labored unusually hard since our return, but
God has given us strength equal to our day. \\ e
are all well, colds excepted. Our little ones are in
the Institute's primary department, Eliza Branch
teacher. Our whole colony have been remarkably

328 OBERLIN.

blessed with health and prosperity. Eleven families
are on the ground, and others waiting to come as
soon as houses can be provided.

Some who spent the summer here have gone east-
ward for their families. Our colonial ground is
nearly all disposed of. . . . The Lord is to be praised
that we were enabled to open our institute at the
appointed time, Dec. 3d, and with thirty scholars.
We have now thirty-four boarding scholars, and ex-
pect forty for the winter. Applicants are without
number, from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, from
Lower Canada to Long Island Sound, from Michigan
to the Atlantic. The scholars study and work well.
Five minutes after the manual labor bell strikes, the
hammer, saws, etc., of the mechanical students wake
all around us, and the axe-men in the woods break-
ing the " ribs of nature" make all crack. Nearly all
our visitors — and they are not few — express surprise
that so great a work has been wrought here in so
short a time. God be praised !

I feel as I said in my sleep the other night, " Ober-
lin will rise, and the devil cannot hinder it." This
my sweet assurance, I hope, rests on God, without
whom we can do nothing. . . .

May our Heavenly Father bless you in all things.
Your affectionate son,

John J. Shipherd.

APPENDIX. 329

Mrs. M. P. Dascomb to Home Friends, Dun-
barton, N. H.

Oberlin, May 24, 1834.

. . . Next morning at five o'clock we took stage
for Elyria, which is ten miles from Oberlin — road
very bad from ruts and mud. We were in constant
danger of overturning. Once when we came to a
ditch in the road the gentlemen got out and took
down a fence, so that we could turn aside into the
adjoining field and ride around the obstacle. At
"Elyria we dined, and obtained a two-horse wagon to
transport us, and two gentlemen from New England
going to the Institute as students, to our journey's
end. We found the wagon a very comfortable con-
veyance, and I was in no fear of being turned out
into the mud, for the driver assured us it could not
turn over. You cannot conceive of a more miserable
road than we had, the last two miles especially, but
still I enjoyed the ride., and our party were all very
cheerful. When passing through the woods I was
so delighted with the black squirrels, the big trees,
and above all the beautiful wild flowers, that at times
I quite forgot to look out for the scraggy limbs that
every now and then gave us a rude brush, till a
warning from Dr. D. that I would get my eyes torn
out, seconded perhaps by an unceremonious lash
from a neighboring bough, would call me to the duty
of self-preservation. Glad were we when an opening
in the forest dawned upon us, and Oberlin was seen.
That, said our driver, is " the city." We rode

330 OB E RUN.

through its principal street, now and then coming
in contact with a stump, till we were set down, not
at the coffee house or tea house, but the boarding
house. Mr. and Mrs. Waldo greeted us cordially,
and I have been " very happy from that day to this."
However, I have not got through my story, as from
my last sentence we should have supposed when
children. We were soon introduced to Mr. and Mrs.
Stewart, superintendents of the boarding and man-
ual labor departments. They were formerly mis-
sionaries among the Choctaws, and are the very best
of persons. The next day we attended meeting,
which is held for this season in the school-room,
though it is already too small for the congregation.
Mr. Waldo is true when he says: "I never have
seen so interesting an assembly." He preaches
sometimes, also Mr. Shipherd. Till we obtain a
minister we have preaching in the afternoon only,
and the morning is spent in a Bible exercise. All
the congregation are members of the Bible class.
This is to me more interesting than preaching even.
I assure you we have Bible scholars at Oberlin. Our
Sabbath-school is held at half-past eight in the
morning ; an excellent superintendent. I shall wish
some time to tell you more particulars of this
school. We have the lesson recited at the Bible
class the previous Sabbath. No question books are
used. Our religious privileges are great here.
Christians are willing to do their duty, and they help
to make meetings interesting. Most of the students
are hopefully pious. They are generally interest-
ing, and very intelligent. Some of them are ap-

APPENDIX. 331

parently as cultivated as any I have ever known in
New England institutions. I hope before many
months to write a long letter to our dear aunt, Mrs.
Putnam, giving a more particular account of this
colony, institution, etc., but you will wish my first
letter to tell of ourselves, and though other things
are more important you can learn them from that
letter. We have now been here two weeks, health
and spirits good, and Oberlin already looks to us
like home. Things about us are all going on so
briskly, one cannot well feel sleepy. The colonists
work with all diligence, and students too, at work-
ing hours. You hear great trees falling, see fires
blazing, and new houses going up in all directions.
There are a few log-houses, which were put up at
first, but now they are all building framed houses.
A large house for Mr. Shipherd will soon be fin-
ished, and this summer another large and very con-
venient boarding house will be completed. The
seminary buildings will not .be erected until next
year, wrhen they design also to build the professors'
houses. We need the boarding house very much at
present. We have sixty or more boarders, and
of course must submit to some inconveniences, but
we do it cheerfully, looking forward to better times.
My room is as large as your sitting room, is painted,
furnished with two chairs and all our trunks, which
make good seats when we have callers. Beside this
furniture we have a good table and two libraries be-
longing to the institution and Mr. Shipherd. These
are indeed valuable, and of course pleasant. . . .
Do not let me forget the food, or mother will not for-

S32 OBERLW.

give me. It is plain, but palatable. We shall have
more variety when the land is cultivated. We shall
have good bread, and milk, much of the time this
summer. We always have good wheat and brown
bread, and generally good butter. Can have meat
twice a day if we choose, but it is not very good, and
I generally prefer vegetable food. Our potatoes,
which we have for a rarity, are not like yours, but
rather heavy. Puddings and nut-cakes are made
sometimes, but no pies. Cheese we have now and
then, and very good. We have hot water with milk
and sugar if we choose, but most prefer cold. I like
my drink quite as well as tea and coffee, and better,
unless the latter have sugar. Our cold water is not
so good as the hills of New Hampshire furnish ; can
hardly tell what it will be when we are an older
country. It is not, however, unpleasant to the taste.
To close : we have all that is necessary for us, and
so many blessings, we do not stop to trouble our-
selves about minor things. In a few months or
years we can hope for more of the fruits of the
earth. Our wheat fields look finely, though they
were a little injured by heavy frosts. Most of the
foliage of the woods is dead from the same cause.
We are hoping for a new set of leaves. As to our
manner of spending time: Dr. D. spends most of
his in school duties. And just let me pay him a
compliment. I do think him one of the best of
teachers. He interests his classes deeply, and enters
into the work with all his heart. He has had many
calls in this place for medical aid, considering that
the colonists have not before been sick ; some diffi-

APPENDIX. 3^3

cult and dangerous cases among the students, but
they are now doing well. I spend three or four
hours a day hearing classes recite. Mrs. Waldo also
assists in school. The females are very interesting;
most of them are from other States, and many from
a distance. That department is not yet distinct
from the other. I shall write Brother L. soon. He
would be happy and very useful here, but I shall
not advise him to come till we get a president, and I
know not that it will then be best for him to come,
if he wishes to study theology, as preparatory and
college studies will be pursued at present.

From J. J. Shipherd to John Keep.

Cincinnati, Dec. 13, 1834.
Dear Brother Keep:

I have been from home nearly three weeks, but
through illness, bad roads, and the unfruitfulness of
the field in which I have been, I have obtained but
little subscription to our beloved Institute — some
two hundred dollars only. I have, however, obtained
and communicated information of importance to
Oberlin and the cause of Christ. And here God has
kindly opened a door to our infant seminary, wide
and effectual, through which I sanguinely hope it
will send forth a multitude of well qualified laborers
into the plenteous harvest of our Lord. I have here
found the man for the president of our loved Insti-
tute, that is, Rev. Asa Mahan. I desire you to call
a meeting of the Board as soon as practicable, and

334 0 BERLIN.

present Brother Mahan as the man of my choice for
the following reasons :

I. I was reluctant to come from Columbus to Cin-
cinnati, but in prayer for direction, was constrained
to come on. Having arrived here, I cannot see why
I should have been sent, except to obtain a president
and professor, and through them other benefits for
Oberlin. 2. All the "glorious good fellows," as
Doctor Beecher used to call them while they were
in Lane Seminary, who, as he says, have done right
in leaving on account of the abominable laws which
the trustees have lately passed — all of them say
that Brother Mahan is the man, and that if he be-
comes president of our institution, they shall apply
to it for liberty there to finish their education. 3.
Rev. Joel Parker of New York, former classmate of
Brother Mahan, advised him to prepare for such a
station, on account of that structure and cultivation
of mind peculiarly fitted for that office. 4. Rev.
Charles G. Finney said that he had the best mind in
Western New York while he was there laboring. 5.
He has been of studious habits from early life, al-
though on account of his father's poverty his advan-
tages were limited till his seventeenth year. Then
being converted, he entered upon a course of study
preparatory to the ministry. From that time, at
Hamilton College and at Andover Theological Semi-
nary, and since he has been in the ministry, he has
been of studious habits. Consequently, 6. He is a
critical scholar in the different sciences, but espe-
cially in intellectual and moral philosophy, a depart-
ment of science commonly assigned to the president.

APPENDIX. 335

7. He has, it seems, a peculiar faculty for govern-
ment, manifest in his family, in presiding over delib-
erative bodies, and in his influence over the alert
minds, with which he comes in contact. 8. He is of
good age, being thirty-five. 9. He is inclined and
able to labor abundantly. 10. He is a man of in-
flexible Christian principle who follows the straight
line of rectitude, while even great and good men
vibrate. II. He has a well educated and excellent
wife who is indeed a helpmeet, and two well man-
aged little daughters. 12. In the midst of a city's
temptations, they have maintained a Christian econ-
omy and simplicity in their style of living. 13. His
interest in our institution is intense, and he would be
willing to toil and sacrifice in its behalf to any ex-
tent ; so would his estimable wife. 14. He has been
most successful as an agent, and would doubtless
through his favorable acquaintance in New York
City and elsewhere secure to us much funds. 15.
Arthur Tappan has pledged to the students who have
left Lane Seminary, and who recommend Brother
Mahan, five thousand dollars and a professorship,
for the establishment of an institute like ours, and
these brethren say — about twenty in number — that
if Brother Mahan becomes our president and Brother
Morgan a professor, they will turn all in with us.
Finally Brother Mahan is a revival minister of the
millennial stamp. I am therefore sure that God will
influence all our beloved associates in the Board to
concur in this nomination, for there is much rare
qualification for the office, and no essential defect
of character manifest.

336 0 BERLIN.

I farther recommend to our Board the Rev. John
Morgan, now of Clinton, Oneida Co., N. Y«, for the
professorship of mathematics and natural philosophy.
I do it, — I. Because Brother T. D. Weld recom-
mends him, and Brother Mahan thinks we cannot
find his equal for the place. 2. The students before
alluded to were at the Lane Seminary under his
tuition, and think he greatly excels as a teacher. 3.
Dr. Cox of New York, whose pupil he was, I believe,
speaks highly of him. 4. I am assured that his
moral excellencies are like those which I have as-
cribed to Brother Mahan. 5. The students who
propose to go to Oberlin, and turn in all their in-
fluence on his account, and Brother Mahan's, have,
Dr. Beecher says, the finest class of minds he ever
knew. Not having seen him I cannot speak as fully
and confidently as I can of Brother Mahan, but have
no doubt that we ought to elect him. I trust the
Lord will unite the Board in the election. The elec-
tion of these men, it strikes me, may, under God,
link our dear institution in a chain which may en-
compass much of earth, binding multitudes in holy
allegiance to God.

I design to leave this city on the twenty-third for
New York City, in company with Brother Mahan,
who has consented to attend me as an associate
agent, and I have written Brother Morgan to meet
us there. I desire therefore that you should forward
your call without any delay to New York, to Rev. Asa
Mahan as president, and Rev. John Morgan as pro-
fessor of mathematics. I desire also that you for-
ward a copy of the call of Brother Mahan to this

APPENDIX. 337

place, and a copy of Brother Morgan's to Clinton, N.
Y. I should not hasten this business thus did I not
believe that God approves, and that by complying
with my request some thousands of dollars may be
secured, and an immense amount of good which
would otherwise be lost. Do, dear brother, dispatch
this business and write to me and them at New York
City as soon as may be. Your son will inform you
about fallen Lane Seminary, what I have not room
to write.

Your Brother,

John J. Shipherd.

From J. J. Shipherd — Pastoral Letter.

New York, Jan. 27, 1835.
To all the Beloved in Christ Jesus, whom
I have gathered, not only at Oberlin, but in my
heart ; " Grace be unto you and peace from God our
Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ." I thank
my God upon every remembrance of you, always in
every prayer of mine for you all, making request with
joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first
day until now ; being confident of this very thing,
that He which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. That you
may be thus perfected, " I pray that your love may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and all
judgment ; that ye may approve things that are ex-
cellent ; that ye may be sincere and without offence
till the day of Jesus Christ ; being filled with the

338 OBERUN,

fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto
the glory and praise of God." And for this, beloved,
I not only pray but now write touching a few of the
many things which concern your peace, your useful-
ness, and the glory of God our Heavenly Father.
Trusting that you reciprocate my Christian love and
confidence, I speak freely as unto my children, my
brethren and my sisters in the Lord.

And first I thank God for the revival of his pre-
cious work among you, and say with emphasis,
"Quench not the Spirit." Oh, "Grieve not the
Spirit of God." That you may not," ponder with
much prayer the scriptures on brotherly love and
Christian union found in Eph. iv. 1-16; Phil. ii. 1 — 17;
and other kindred scriptures. Also that you may
not faint, " Search the scriptures, feed upon and di-
gest them till you feel their nourishment in your
hearts and their controlling influence in your lives.
By much prayer also, drink in of the Spirit largely.
Yet, beloved, " Watch unto prayer," lest in an evil
hour the world overcome you. If you will do your
duty the revival will never cease ; but the fountains
which the Spirit has graciously opened in your souls
will rise and overflow till they form a sea of glory.
If you will do your duty, Oberlin will be a living
fountain whose waters will refresh the far-off, thirsty,
dying Gentiles and wretched Jews. " Be vigilant,"
therefore, dearly beloved, "watch and pray," and
never sleep, as do others.

In the second place, dear brethren and sisters, per-
mit me to exhort you to be " the Lord's peculiar
people, zealous of good works." I would not have

APPENDIX. 339

you needlessly singular, but I would have you actu-
ally singular, even among the churches if they con-
tinue as they now are. Far better to be unlike them
and all on earth, than to be unlike Christ. Instead
of taking the blessed Son of God as their pattern,
the churches have measured themselves by them-
selves, and compared themselves with themselves
unwisely, till the image of Christ is so lost that God
will not instamp their image upon the world. I be-
lieve that it is because we are so unlike his Son that
he delays to give our likeness to pagan nations.
Why should God give a spurious Christianity to the
nations yet to receive the gospel ? No, beloved, the
Church must put off her earthly attire and put on
Christ before she can receive to her millennial em-
brace a regenerated world. It must be so. When
the people of God do this they will be peculiar in
their diet, dress, and all that appertains to them.
The simplicity of Christ will characterize them.
This, dearly beloved, you have acknowledged in your
" colonial covenant." " Now, therefore, perform
the doing of it." That you would, there were pleas-
ing indications when we parted. Oh, how sweet that
last meeting that we held in relation to bur colonial
covenant ! And how delightful to see even the aged
members of our body crucifying the flesh that Christ
might be glorified. My heart's desire and prayer to
God has been that they might be steadfast and gain
the victory. Let me beseech you all to be thorough
in excluding from your diet, dress, and all pertaining
to you, everything which in the least hinders your
sanctification or the conversion of the world. This

340 OBERLIN.

subject is magnified in my estimation as one which
pertains to salvation, and I pray that it may be in
yours. In these respects may you be a " peculiar
people." Moreover, brethren, be peculiarly fervent
in your charity toward all saints, not merely of your
distinctive name, but of Christ's dearer name. Let
the door of your church be as wide as the door of
heaven, but no wider, and strive to unite the dear
people of God under " one fold and one shepherd."
To your virtue " add knowledge," for u knowledge is
power." And permit me here to request thatyou enter
early upon the system of colonial education, which
I recommended last spring, and which the brethren
then on the ground resolved to adopt. Reflection
and conversation with intelligent persons have con-
firmed my opinion that the system proposed is one
peculiarly worthy of Christ's disciples, not only on
account of its intellectual but its moral bearing also.
And as property is convertible into moral power,
look well to the state of your farms, shops, and all
your temporal interests. " Be diligent in business,"
remembering Pastor Oberlin's plea that good roads
be made for Christ's sake.

Peculiar excellence in these respects will commend
your religion, and aid in casting up a highway for the
Lord. Let me also exhort you, beloved, to be pecu-
liarly zealous and liberal in sustaining the Institute.
This is expected of you abroad, and reasonably too.
You may through that institution preach by proxy
with great power. Let it live then in your prayers,
your contributions, your efforts to board its pupils
and promote its various interests, and do all this as

APPENDIX. 34I

unto the Lord. The peculiarity which I desire in
this case is, that you do all this, not like most com-
munities surrounding literary institutions, for secular
gain, but for Christ's sake. Furthermore, lest you
become alienated in your minds, keep up an open,
frequent intercourse, of a truly Christian character.
I have deeply regretted that through the cares of
the world we were last season so estranged from
each other. Do, beloved, set aside everything which
hinders you from knowing each other as members of
one body in Christ our Lord. Let religion be your
theme, and praise and prayer a portion of your em-
ployment in all your social visits. Also strive to
keep up a kind of Christian intercourse with your
neighbors around Oberlin. Let not those dear
brethren who labor in Sabbath-schools and other-
wise for the salvation of those about you be weary
in well doing, but may others join them till no neigh-
borhood is left. Moreover, let me exhort you, as
the Lord's peculiar people, to be zealous in finding
out and employing those means by which the world
is to be converted. Fear not, brethren, to lead in
doing right. There must be a mighty overturning
before He whose right it is shall rule over all nations,
and the servants of God will have to turn much up-
side down, as Paul did, before all will be right.
There must also be many inventions of moral as well
as physical machinery before Satan's throne will be
demolished. Who should be forward in these over-
turnings and inventions if not my dear people at
Oberlin ? You know, beloved, I would not have you
rash or inconsiderate in changing a single custom ;

342 OB E RUN.

but I would have you study and pray out the mind
of the Spirit and execute it promptly, without asking
how the world or even the Church would like it.
Nothing is more impolitic as well as wicked than to
substitute expediency for duty. This is now a
prevalent sin of the church, which nullifies her
power. It is so prevalent in all the churches that I
fear some of you, beloved, if not all, will yield to its
paralyzing influence. My fears are excited by your
recent expressions of unwillingness to have youth of
color educated in our Institute. Those expressions
were a grief to me, such as I have rarely suffered.
Although I knew that with some of you the doctrine
of expediency was against the immediate abolition
of slavery, because slaves are not qualified for free-
dom, I supposed you thought it expedient and duty
to elevate and educate them as fast as possible, that
therefore you would concur in receiving those of
promising talent and piety into our institution. So
confident was I that this would be the prevailing
sentiment of Oberlin in the colony and Institute that
about a year ago I informed eastern inquirers that
we received students according to character, irre-
spective of color; and, beloved, whatever the expe-
diency or prejudice of some may say, does not duty
require this? Most certainly.

For, i. They are needed as ministers, missionaries,
and teachers for the land of their fathers, and for
their untaught, injured, perishing brethren of our
country. 2. Their education seems highly essential
if not indispensable to the emancipation and salva-
tion of their colored brethren. 3. They will be ele-

APPENDIX. 343

Vated much more rapidly if taught with whites,
hitherto far more favored, than if educated sepa-
rately. 4. The extremity of their wrongs at the
white man's hand requires that the best possible
means be employed, and without delay, for their ed-
ucation. 5. They can nowhere enjoy needed educa-
tion unless admitted to our institution, or others
established for whites. 6. God made them of one
blood with us ; they are our fellows. 7. They are
our neighbors, and whatsoever we would they should
do unto us, we must do unto them, or become guilty
before God. Suppose, beloved, your color were to
become black, what would you claim, in this respect,
to be your due as a neighbor? 8. Those we propose
to receive are the " little ones" of Christ. We must
" take heed how we offend one of these ' little ones.' "
9. The objection to associating with them for the
purpose of thus doing them good is like the objec-
tion of the Pharisees against our Saviour's eating
with publicans and sinners. 10. Intermarriage with
the whites is not asked, and need not be feared. 1 1.
None of you will be compelled to receive them into
your families, unless, like Christ, the love of your
neighbor compel you to. 12. Those who desire to
receive and educate them have the same right to do
it that Christ had to eat with publicans and sinners.
13. Colored youth have been educated at other in-
stitutions for whites. 14. They will doubtless be re-
ceived to all such institutions by and by, and why
should beloved Oberlin wait to do justice and show
mercy till all others have done it ? Why hesitate to
lead in the cause of humanity and of God ? 15. Col-

344 OBERLLV.

ored youth cannot be rejected through fear that God
will be dishonored if they are received. 16. How-
ever it may be with you, brethren, I know that it
was only the pride of my wicked heart that caused
me to reject them while I did. 17. If we refuse to
deliver our brother now drawn unto death, I cannot
hope that God will smile upon us. 18. The men
and money which would make our institution most
useful cannot be obtained if we reject our colored
brother. Eight professorships and ten thousand
dollars are subscribed upon condition that Rev. C.
G. Finney become Professor of Theology in our In-
stitute, and he will not unless the youth of color are
received. Nor will President Mahan nor Professor
Morgan serve unless this condition is complied with.
And they all are the men we need, irrespective of
their anti-slavery sentiments. 19. If you suffer ex-
pediency or prejudice to pervert justice in this case
you will in another. 20. Such is my conviction of
duty in this case that I cannot labor for the enlarge-
ment of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, if our
brethren in Jesus Christ must be rejected because
they differ from us in color. You know, dear breth-
ren and sisters, that it would be hard for me to leave
that institution which I planted in much fasting and
prayer and tribulation, sustained for a time by only
one brother, and then for months by only two breth-
ren, and for which I have prayed without ceasing,
laboring night and day, and watering it with my
sweat and my tears. You know it would be hard to
part with my dear associates in these labors. And
as I have you, as a people, in my heart to live and

APPENDIX. 345

die with you, you know, beloved, that it would be
heart-breaking to leave you for another field of labor ;
but I have pondered the subject well, with prayer,
and believe that if the injured brother of color, and
consequently Brothers Finney, Mahan and Morgan,
with eight professorships and ten thousand dollars,
must be rejected, I must join them ; because by so
doing I can labor more effectually for a lost world
and the glory of God — and, believe me, dear breth-
ren and sisters, for this reason only. The agitation
produced by my request forwarded to the trustees,
some weeks since, was unexpected. I was sorry
that it occurred, but happy that you fasted and
prayed it down. I trust that season has prepared
the minds of all who devoutly observed it for
this communication, which I would have suppressed
till my return had I not been under the necessity
of communicating the same to the trustees for im-
mediate decision, because our professors and funds
are all suspended upon that decision, and myself
also. May God of his infinite mercy grant that in
this, and all things right, we may be " perfectly joined
together in one mind." For two weeks after I left
Oberlin I was quite unwell with a cold ; but the Lord
has since blessed me greatly with health. I have
here been some four weeks upon the Graham system
of diet, which is nature's system, and my health is
essentially improved. Last Sabbath morning I
preached in the old Chatham Theatre, now Chatham
Chapel, which is immensely large, and more than an
hour, and to the Fourth Free Church as long in the
afternoon, and yet felt well on Monday morning. I

34-6 O BERLIN.

now indulge sanguine hope that through this system
of diet and the blessing of God I shall be able to re-
engage in pastoral labor. And if on my return in
April next, God willing, you, beloved flock, should
still concur in desiring me to be your pastor, and
concur in doing good to our oppressed brethren of
color, I shall bless God for the privilege of wearing
out as your servant for Christ's sake.
As ever your affectionate brother,

John J. Shipherd.

Asa Mahan to N. P. Fletcher, Secretary.

New York, March 12, 1835.

Brother Fletcher:

Though personally I am unknown to you, I can-
not regard myself as a stranger. The residence of
your daughter in my family has endeared to us all
that are dear to her. Then through Brother Ship-
herd and others I know you as an endeared brother
in Christ. But I have not time nor disposition for
compliments now. We are doing a great work, and
cannot descend to such objects. My object in writ-
ing is to make some statements and suggestions
respecting the dear institution to which our energies
and prayers are mutually consecrated. To-morrow
I expect to start for Cincinnati, after having passed
through the middle and western part of this State.
Brother Shipherd is expected daily in this city,

APPENDIX. 347

where he and Brother Finney will commence opera-
tions for raising funds, etc.

From all that has been done and promised, our
success is certain but for two occurrences which may
the Father of all mercies prevent : i. If we do not
"wax fat and kick," and God for this reason aban-
don us. 2. If those who have control of the destiny
of Oberlin stand firm at this crisis. Will the trus-
tees secede from the stand which they have taken,
or will they quit themselves like men? If they will,
and give the public manifestation of the fact, funds
can be raised, all temporalities can be supplied, and
Heaven will bless us.

Dear Brother, have you confidence in the Board
of Trustees associated with you ? If so, write im-
mediately to Brother Shipherd in this city and let
him know. Everything, with the favor of God, de-
pends upon this. Through Brother Keep you have
no doubt received a notice of his new purposes, and
our acceptance of our several appointments. As
soon as possible after my arrival in Cincinnati, I in-
tend to start for Oberlin. I hope some log house
will be prepared for our reception. There we shall
rejoice to stay till better accommodations are pro-
vided. Myself, and all associated with me, come
upon the field not to live in splendor, but to work
for God and a dying world. I hope that we shall be
able to say to all our pupils, be ye " followers of us
as we are of Christ." Brother Finney is a man of
God, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. His like
cannot be found in any other institution in the
country. His coadjutors will be men of kindred

348 OBERUN.

spirit. Will not the Lord of Hosts be with us, and
the God of Jacob be our refuge ? He will. Oberlin
shall yet become a great luminary in the kingdom
of Christ, whose light shall encircle the whole earth.
Write me at Cincinnati, as soon as this is received,
without fail. Love to all who love the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity.

Your brother,

A. Mahan.

From Dr. and Mrs. Dascomb, to Home
Friends.

Oberlin, April 7, 1835.
Dear Mother:

In a former letter you received some description
of Oberlin, but it has changed much since. The
number of inhabitants has very much increased dur-
ing the year that we have lived here, and we are
expecting a large accession this spring, as soon as
the travelling becomes good. More than twenty of
the students who left Lane Seminary are daily ex-
pected here to complete their education. Mr. Fin-
ney is expected here next week in company with
Mr. Shipherd. Some twenty or thirty families will
doubtless be in during the summer.

The character which the Institution has assumed,
viz., a " new divinity" and " abolition" seminary, will
render it popular in New York and Ohio, and the
eminent men who have recently been appointed as
professors will attract students from all quarters.

APPEXDIX. 349

Funds will not be wanting, and if these principles
and their practical application meet the approbation
of God, the Institution will prosper. . . . Do
you ask how so many students and colonists can
be accommodated? We do not live in " hollow
trees," but many of the students will live this sea-
son in a temporary shed, which is partially prepared,
and is to consist of twenty-five or thirty rooms, sep-
arated from each other by rough boards. It is to be
shingled with slabs.

The new measures in the Institute will make some
change in our situation.

The increase of population will soon furnish busi-
ness enough for the undivided attention of a phy-
sician. On the other hand the plans of the Institute
are maturing so rapidly, that the department which
is assigned to me will demand the entire energies of
one man. Under these circumstances I must either
resign my office in the Institute or relinquish the
practice of medicine.

I prefer the former for several reasons. I. I am
better qualified for the practice of my profession
than for the duties of professor in the Institute. 2d.
People have reposed some confidence in me as a phy-
sician, but I think it very doubtful whether I should
ever gain much reputation, or be able to do much
good as a lecturer. 3d. I am not entirely pleased
with all the " new measures" respecting the Institute.
I have not consulted with the trustees and my
friends upon the subject, but I now think I shall
resign my office. . . . I can never be sufficiently
grateful that I was so kindly received into your fain-

35° OB E RUN.

in

ily, and allowed to become a son. In every trial,
sorrows and in joys, Marianne is just the companion
I need, and everything I could wish. And while she
is regarded with daily increasing affection, her dear
mother, and brother, and sisters at home will please
accept a full share of my love.

J. DASCOMB.

Our folio does not get filled very fast, my dear
mother. We intended this should be the letter next
mailed by us when we commenced it, but we had a
letter from Oakham a few days since, which we
thought should be answered immediately, and so,
with all our other duties to perform, we have neg-
lected this sheet. I find my school engagements
occupy most of my time, yet it is time pleasantly
spent. I do not come home at night so fatigued as
I used to be when I had a whole school to manage
alone. The government of the school, and its gen-
eral plans, devolve now upon a president, and I have
nothing to do but to discharge faithfully my orifice
as teacher of a few classes. I devote most of my
time out of school to preparing for recitations.

I must inform you that I am a pupil as well as
teacher. I recite daily with Dr. Dascomb's class in
botany, being desirous of extending my knowledge
of that science. Should Providence give me as much
leisure and opportunity as I now have, to cultivate
the mind, I intend to improve it.

Last winter I attended the chemical recitations
when convenient. You will say I am partial to the
professor of chemistry and botany, as I confine my

APPENDIX, 351

studies to his department. I shall not refuse to
have other teachers when I take other studies,
though I may express as much regret as some of
the other ladies have at changing teachers. . . .
Mr. Mahan, our President, has been here a few-
weeks. We are very much pleased with him. He
has been very successful as a pastor in Cincinnati,
and was urgently invited to become pastor of a
church in New York City at the time he was called
to Oberlin. He is an eloquent preacher, and I think
I never heard more instructive and practical ser,
mons. I trust he will be a blessing to this Institu,
tion. ... I wish our dear friends from " Parkei
House" could step in and visit us in our little cham.
ber. It was built purposely for us, and is just such
a neat, quiet little retreat as we love. We removed
from the boarding-house last winter to Deacon
Pease's, and find our situation far preferable to
what it was last summer. Mrs. Pease is a pleasant
woman, and manages her children well. She thinks
much of making her boarders happy. Deacon Pease
is more like Deacon Wilson than any one I know of.
He looks like Uncle Tenney— is ardently pious. It
seems quite proper that the two deacons should be
in the same family, for you must know the good
people have elected your son in Oberlin to that
office. The choice is quite recent. One of the
deacons chosen last summer removed from Oberlin,
and Dr. D. was chosen in his stead. There were but
one or two votes for any other man, which showed
the unanimity of feeling. They choose deacons
only for one year here, otherwise Dr. D. would

352 OBERLIN.

have declined on account of his profession, the
duties of which will often call him from home.

Mr. Pease's little son inquired the other day what
D.D.D. stood for. We saw from his countenance
that he was grappling with a brilliant thought, but
were unable to guess the enigma. He informed us
it was Deacon Doctor Dascomb. Whenever I write
a word respecting husband that is complimentary it
distresses him as much as it used to A. He has the
same low opinion of himself that used to interest
me in him in old times. I don't know but the fact
of his being no office seeker is the reason that
the good people here are fond of electing him. He
has been made President of the Lyceum, one of
the committee to oversee the Sabbath-school in
this place and others connected with it, auditor of
accounts for the agent of Oberlin Collegiate Insti-
tute, secretary of the Oberlin Temperance Society,
and secretary of the County Medical Society, etc.
I mention these little things to mother, because I
know she will be anxious to know whether we
meet with cordial friends in our new home. We
have more and better friends than we deserve. You
would be delighted with some of our good men and
women of the colony, and students of the Institute.
. . . As I wrote this I stopped my pen, and raised
my eyes to laugh, and as my eyes rested on an object
seen from my window, my risibility increased as I
thought I would describe it to Hannah. It is the
palace of Pres. Mahan. It was not originally erected
for him, being the first house erected in Oberlin. It
was made of the bodies of the monarchs of our for-

APPENDIX. 353

est in their native state, no hammer or saw being
allowed to mar their pristine beauty. The mansion
is on Centre Street, being at the north end of a
block of buildings in the same style of architecture.
In the front of this dwelling is one door, and a few
inches from it one window. This whole pile having
become somewhat dilapidated by the encroachment
of time, or the depredation of village school-boys
who have been trained there for a few months past,
has been repaired, and a shanty of rough boards ad-
ded to make more numerous apartments. I have
not been in recently to observe modern improve-
ments, but the President says they shall have a fine
suite of apartments, a parlor, kitchen, bedroom, etc.
His family have not yet arrived, but are daily ex-
pected. They have two children. Mrs. Mahan was
educated a lady, in affluence. She is said to be a
superior woman. Their house will be built in a few
months. It will be large. There are but few log
houses here. Few of the framed houses are com-
pletely finished, but many of them are neat and
comfortable. Indeed the log houses are comfortable,
and some of them exhibit as much neatness as Mr.
Curtis's of D. I had no idea they could be fit for
habitations for man. As for our stumps, I have
ceased to think of them, except in a dark night,
when my unwary steps lead me upon them. We
shall soon have good roads, as strenuous efforts are
to be made for them. . . .

May the blessing of God rest upon you all, is the
daily prayer of.

Marianne.

354 OBERLIN.

From Arthur Tappan.

New York, May, 1835.

Rev. J. J. Shipherd :

Dear Sir : It is unnecessary for me to say to you
that I feel a deep interest in your institution. My
actions must have convinced you of this ; but very
inadequately indeed, for the full extent of my interest
in it I should find it difficult to express either in
words or actions. I believe with you that it is the
work of God and will prosper, though not perhaps
quite as rapidly as our desires would have it. But
" God's ways are" truly in such undertakings " not
as our ways." The storms of opposition, and may
be the pecuniary struggles it has to contend with,
are perhaps providentially ordered to cause its roots
to strike deeper, and to make its ultimate prosperity
more certain.

But my object in writing is to say that should you
fail of obtaining the aid you anticipate, and that is
necessary to carry forward the enterprise with needed
celerity, I propose that you shall enable me, or Mr.
Wm. Green, Jr., and myself, to raise money on the
property belonging to the institution, by mortgaging
it to us in trust for the purpose. If you can place
security ample and sufficient in our hands, I am ready
to say you may draw on me for ten thousand dol-
lars, on the strength of it, in the course of the present
year, if it is needed.

Yours in Christian bonds,

Arthur Tappan.

APPENDIX. 355

P. S. — My subscription of five thousand dollars
your treasurer may draw for, as it is needed, in drafts
at ninety days' sight. This is independent of the
above proposition.

Yours,

A. T.

From Lewis Tappan.

New York, May 5, 1835.

Dear Brother Shipherd :

When I paid the first instalment of my subscrip-
tion, it was my intention, as I mentioned to you, to
accompany it with a letter expressing my view as to
future payments. Time did not then allow of it,
and I write this short letter, retaining a copy, that it
may be clearly understood on what footing my sub-
scription stands. The written condition is, that
Rev. C. G. Finney should be Professor of Theology
in the Oberlin Institution, and the verbal addition
was, that antislavery principles should be recognized
in the Institution, freely discussed and inculcated ;
and that the broad ground of moral reform, in all its
departments, should characterize the instructions.
The subscriptions were to be paid while in the judg-
ment of the subscriber these things were recognized
and taught. I wish to be very careful in stating the
mutual understanding we had on the subject, be-
cause since my subscription was made I have felt
and expressed, in your hearing and Brother Finney's,
strong doubts whether antislavery principles and

356 O BERLIN,

practices would be satisfactorily inculcated at Ober-
lin. Praying God to bless the instructors and stu-
dents, and make the Institution a great blessing to
this land and the world,

I am, dear sir, your obedient servant,
Lewis Tappan.

Arthur Tappan to J. J. Shipherd.

New York, May 6, 1835.

Rev. and Dear Sir :

Rev. Mr. Finney left here yesterday for Oberlin.
He has the prayers of many here for his safe arrival
with you, and we indulge high hopes of his useful-
ness in the institution to which he has been called at
Oberlin. You will doubtless hear that an effort is
making on the Reserve by the friends of the Western
Reserve College to get him there. I sincerely hope
he will not listen for a moment to any such proposi-
tion, for nothing short of a thorough change in the
men who govern that institution, as well the trustees
as the Faculty — with the exception of a small min-
ority— would ensure to the friends of liberal senti-
ments the glorious results now confidently anticipated
from Oberlin. ... I feel much interested in your
institution and shall at all times be obliged to you for
any intelligence touching its prosperity.

With great respect and esteem,
I am truly yours,

Arthur Tappan,

appendix. 357

From Arthur Tappan.

New York, June 15, 1835.
Rev. J. J. Shipherd :

Dear Sir: . . . Permit me to suggest that some
regard should be had to the style of building, and
laying out your college grounds. There is a great
defect in this particular in our eastern colleges. With,
out much, if any, additional expense, good taste may
be consulted in the public and private buildings you
erect, and the grounds around them. And it will
add not a little to the satisfaction of your friends
when they visit you, if I may judge from my own
feelings.

And is it not true that chasteness in architecture
and adjoining grounds has a refining influence on
the character, and adds immensely to the enjoyment
of life? I feel that it is a religious duty to imitate
our Heavenly Benefactor in this as in all his other
perfections. With much regard,

Yours,
Arthur Tappan.

From T. S. Ingersoll — A Colonist.

To the Board of Trust for the Oberlin Collegiate
Institute.

Dear Brethren:

Will you suffer a word from one who loves the
cause in which you are engaged ? The Lord has
made you the almoners of bounty, in a work of

358 OBERLIN.

most interesting and fearfully responsible character.
He has opened wide the hand of his bounty, and
poured into his treasury which he has established
here in the wilderness, for an express, definite pur-
pose ; and that object is no other than the world's
conversion to Jesus Christ, in the soonest possible
time. And to accomplish this, many and spacious
buildings are requisite for the accommodation of those
whom God has called to take the charge of others,
whom he in his providence has called to prepare to
preach the everlasting Gospel ; also buildings for the
students preparatory to this great work. You, my
dear brethren, have taught us to regard this as God's
work, God's buildings, God's institution and God's
property, and this is right ; because you have in a
special manner consecrated yourselves to God for
this work which he has assigned you. And he has
consecrated all the funds, which he has sent here, to
a most holy service, and the whole, funds, land,
buildings, all, all, have again and again been most
solemnly consecrated to God for the above described
purpose, by him who wras the founder of this in-
stitution, and who gathered this colony, and by the
colonists whom he gathered, and may I not say by
your honorable body also.

Seeing these things are so, what manner of build-
ings and what manner of work ought your body to
direct to be built?

" Be ye not conformed to this world," is the injunc-
tion of Him who has called you to be his stewards.
Again, those things that are highly esteemed among
men — men of this world, impenitent men — are an

APPENDIX. 359

abomination in the sight of God. My dear brethren,
will you build houses for the servants of the Most
High God, with his own money, in a manner that
will be highly esteemed among men, and because
they are so, "an abomination in the sight of Him"
for whom they are built ? Will you direct or even
suffer mechanics to build, even at their own expense,
houses here for carrying forward the Lord's work,
merely to be esteemed by the men of this world,
that you may secure their friendship? Know ye,
11 that he that would be a friend to the world, is the
enemy of God," for, " the friendship of this world is
enmity with God." " Ye cannot serve God and
mammon." In the house which is built for Brother
Mahan, I have found some forty or more dollars'
worth of work in the two north rooms which I can-
not for my life find any good reason for, except it be
to please the taste of a vitiated world. An impeni-
tent master-builder remarked to me the other day,
that he thought President Mahan's house might have
been built three hundred dollars cheaper, taking size
and style, and have it answer the object for which it
ought to be built, especially when the public's money
was employed for the work. . . .

There is a plain, neat, simple style of building,
which commends itself to every man's enlightened
good sense, and still will not be highly esteemed by
the world, neither is it an abomination in the sight
of God.

Will my brethren seek for this style of having the
work of the Lord done, which is committed to their
hands? If so, from whom will they draw their

360 OBERLW.-

models ? From the word of God, or from the word
of Benjamin, or some other human architect?

Supposing all the buildings which are to be
erected here with the Lord's money be built in the
style of good architectural taste, so that the men of
this world would commend us for our good style, and
correct taste, and by this we should secure the influ-
ence which this world affords — what would be gained ?
What? I will tell you, my dear brethren. We should
gain that which Jesus Christ said on another though
somewhat similar occasion, " Woe unto you, when
all men shall speak well of you." With much love,
and anxious solicitude for the cause of God in Ober-
lin, I subscribe myself,

Your brother in Christ,

T. S. Ingersoll.

OBERLIN, March 9, 1836.

From J. J. Shipherd— Pastoral Letter.
To the Churcli of CJirist in Oberlin.

Dearly Beloved:

Although the endearing relation which I sustain
to you as pastor has existed only about one year,
duty requires that it should be dissolved. I thank
God, dear brothers and sisters, that this dissolution
is not called for because we have fallen out by the
way, but for the furtherance of the Gospel. You
are in my heart to live and die with you, and your
Christian regards to me have been so demonstrated,

APPENDIX. 361

that I doubt not their sincerity, nor their strength.
Yet a strong hand binds us to God our Saviour, and
his will is paramount to our pleasure. That it is the
will of the great Head of the church, that I should
now resign my pastoral office, appears to me plain,
in the subsequent facts : 1. I have not been profit-
able to you in the ministry, I have longed to feed
the sheep, and feed the lambs, and reconcile the
rebellious to God ; but ill health and the draughts
of the Institute upon my health and time have ren-
dered it impossible for me to accomplish this work.
I can merely pass it off in an ordinary way, which
will no more answer for Oberlin than it will do for
you to be an ordinary church. 2. The great Head
of the Church is opening before me a door of useful-
ness, wide and effectual, in the work of Christian
education, and distinctly calling me into that great
and blessed work. So that while I can do but little
in the plenteous harvests by personal ministry, I
can do much to supply it with effective laborers, and
thus preach Christ still, through the Oberlin Insti-
tute, and kindred seminaries, which, under God, I
may aid in building. 3. In these views, as far as I
know, my brethren and sisters concur, so that I need
not specify other reasons, nor amplify these, which
are as conclusive as they are brief. Permit me,
brethren, however, to add a brief expression of my
strong desire that you elect as my successor none
but a man after God's own heart, thoroughly fur-
nished for the peculiar work of Oberlin. You must
not only have a preacher in power, but a pastor in
practice, who will be in every home and every heart

362 0 BERLIN.

whose soul is imbued with the principle of the Ober-
lin covenant.

Unless you can get such a man, my advice is that
you settle no one, but rely, under God, upon your
own labors, aided by our dear brethren of the Faculty.
Considering the plenteousness of the harvests, the
fewness of the laborers, and the number of ministers
connected with the Institution, I have sometimes
doubted whether you ought to take, from another
field, such a man as would fill the pastoral office
here. But considering the peculiar and the immense
bearings of this church upon others, and the world,
for their sakes as well as yours, and for the glory of
God abroad as well as here, I advise that you in-
vite the best man you can find on Zion's walls, whose
peculiar circumstances do not forbid his leaving his
present post. I have thought that you and the
trustees might elect jointly a pastor and professor
of pastoral theology, if a man combining the requisite
qualifications could be found. But looking abroad,
in the extensive circle of my ministerial acquaint-
ances, and considering the amount of parochial labors
required in this large and growing church, I do not
believe the man lives who could finish the work of
both offices. Nevertheless if the Colony and the
Institute cannot be bound together thus in one fold
under one shepherd, be sure you settle a man who
will encircle the Colony in one arm and the Institute
in another, holding them as a church in inseparable
Christian union. And now, beloved in Jesus, remem-
ber your high calling, your infinite responsibility, and
press toward the mark. You have witnessed a good

APPENDIX. 363

profession before the world. Oh, let your practice
correspond. You stand on the pinnacle of Zion's
hill. Oh, reflect the pure cloudless light of the Sun
of righteousness. Remember that, like Thesaloni-
ca, Oberlin must be an example to all that believe,
or reproach Christ and ruin a multitude of souls.
Therefore let the Oberlin covenant, or, in other
words, the Gospel, be stereotyped in your hearts,
and embodied in you, dear brethren and sisters, as
living epistles, known and read of all men. But I
must suppress the overflowing of my heart toward
you, and close by saying, " only let your conversation
be as becometh the Gospel of Christ, that whether
I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of
your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one
mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel,
and in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which
is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you
of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is
given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on
him, but also to suffer for his sake." That you, be-
loved, might be perfect as your Father in Heaven is
perfect, is the prayer of your affectionate pastor,

John J. Shipherd.
Oberlin, June 15, 1836.

From Joshua Leavitt.

Buffalo, July 11, 1835.
Brother Shipherd :

If I am not mistaken your professorship of mathe-
matics has been vacated. While here attending a

364 ODERLIN.

temperance convention I have become pleasingly
acquainted with Dr. William K. Scott, of Sandy
Hill, N. Y., whose character as a teacher of math-
ematics stands very high, as certified by the late
Governor Pitcher, Hon. Henry C. Martindale and
other scientific gentlemen. He is afloat now, and I

presume could be had for Oberlin I can

hardly bear to go back to New York without visit-
ing that loved spot, but Mr. Benedict's health is
poor, and I must hasten home, as I do not see any
special reason to go. Go on, brother ; build your
houses and select your teachers, and the Lord be
with you. I think more and more, from what I hear
at the eastward, that John P. Cowles and Brother
Barrows ought to be kept before you as candidates
for some post, and that they could do you good.
Love to Brother Finney and all others. The lectures
go well, and we want another series next winter.
Yours truly,

Joshua Leavitt.

From Lewis Tappan.

New York, Aug. 10, 1835.

Dear Brother Shipherd:

.... I intended to have mentioned to you pre-
viously my design to resign the office of president
of the association to perpetuate the professorships.
I have communicated the same to Mr. I. W. Clark,
the secretary. I have so much business of various

APPENDIX. 365

kinds to attend to that I cannot well act on the
above committee. I recommend Brother Wm.
Green, Jr., as successor.

The enemy has come out with great wrath and
fury. Unusual excitement prevails in the South
and in fact throughout the country. Threats of
assassination and abduction are loud and frequent.
My brother is the special object of the blood-thirsty
vengeance of the slavery men. What measures they
may take it is impossible to foresee. I suppose the
" prudent" abolitionists will accuse us of some injudi-
cious measures that have excited the people through-
out the United States, and we shall be told, "The
prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself."
My house has been named in a hand-bill signed
Judge Lynch, as a mark of popular fury. But
hitherto the Lord has preserved us, and blessed be
his holy name !

The executive committee are firm to a man, de-
termined to go forward, even at the expense of
property and life. We feel a calmness and confi-
dence in God that supports us in this trying hour.
Out of one hundred and seventy-five thousand pub-
lications issued by the American Antislavery Society
in July, only one thousand were burnt at Charleston,
S. C. — the one hundred and seventy-fifth part ! The
rest are working their way all over the land. We
did not send one to a slave or even a free man of
color at the South, though we claim a right to send
to the latter. The Lord we trust will overrule " this
madness of the people" to the promotion of the
blessed cause, and the glory of his name.

366 OBERLW.

With Christian regard to the dear brethren, I am
your friend and brother,

Lewis Tappan.

Thomas Clarkson to Wm. Dawes, in Eng-
land.

Playford Hall, Oct. 14, 1839.

To William Dazves :

My Respected Friend :

I am very sorry that in consequence of my having
passed several sleepless nights, I was not able to
enter so fully as I could have wished, into the object
of your mission to this country, when you did me
the honor of calling upon me. It is a matter of
great pleasure to have had from you an account of
the Oberlin establishment. I cannot but take a
deep interest in its welfare, seeing how many desir-
able objects it combines, and how well calculated it
is, but particularly at this moment, to meet preju-
dices, and to oppose the efforts of interested men,
who set themselves up, in defiance of the laws of
God, to trample under foot human liberty, and to
reduce man, to whom the powers of intellect were
given, to the situation of the brute. I know not to
what a degrading state your unhappy country will be
brought, unless a stop be put to slavery. Will you
continue long, unless you change your measures, to
be reckoned among the civilized nations of the
earth? To be familiar with the sound of injustice

APPENDIX. 367

daily in your ears, and to lend no helping hand,
must produce in time a taint or corruption which
must injure the moral character. Has not this cor-
ruption already begun? Has it not proceeded from
blacks to whites?

From a systematic familiarity with oppression
have not your rulers begun to oppress you their fel-
low subjects? You are forbidden to speak, you are
forbidden to write, or even to petition on this sub-
ject. Where is this the case but in most despotic
countries? Surely it could never have been foreseen
that this would ever have been the case in the
United States. It becomes you, therefore, to do
all you can to wipe away this stain from your coun-
try. And I rejoice, therefore, to hear that the Ober-
lin Society has risen up, and that it has had the
courage to rise up under such circumstances, amidst
the growing darkness and immorality spreading
over your once happy land, to meet the evil in
question.

I heard with pleasure that the corporation of the
City of London received the petition in behalf of the
Oberlin establishment with so much courtesy. I
cannot doubt of their doing something liberally and
handsomely towards promoting the object of it.
But after all, it is not so much what they give as the
high sanction of their example. This ought to be
justly estimated in the United States, and it is to
be the more appreciated when it is considered that
men of different religious denominations, and of dif-
ferent political parties were assembled to receive the
petition. It is highly creditable to this corporation

368 O BERLIN.

that they should have listened to the petition of
American Abolitionists, whom we are unfortunately
obliged to consider as aliens in point of country,
though they sprang from ourselves. Their motive
could only have been a real compassion for the dis-
tressed. I trust that God in his providence is
opening a way through the Oberlin Society, or that
he will open a way, for the relief of the oppressed of
our fellow creatures who are the subject of this
letter.

Yours truly,

Thomas Clarkson.

Note. — The vote of the Corporation was eighty-
one yeas and eighty-three nays. — Ed,

Hon. Josiah Harris, of Amherst, to his
Wife.

Columbus, O., Thanksgiving A. M., 1842.
: I must say to you that you can have no

conception of the opposition and prejudice existing
against Oberlin College in the Legislature. This
year it arises principally from the numerous peti-
tions presented last year for the repeal of its charter
and from a book, " Oberlin Unmasked," passing
round in the House, and a thousand unfavorable
rumors in relation to amalgamation, fanaticism, har-
boring fugitive slaves, etc., all founded upon rumor
without any evidence of their truth before the Legis-
lature.

APPENDIX. 369

Mr. McNulty, of the House, at the commence-
ment of the session, on notice, introduced a bill for
the repeal of the Oberlin College charter, which is
still pending. It is now in the hands of the Com-
mittee on Corporations in that branch of the Legis-
lature. They had not reported yesterday. It is
now pretty generally thought that it will pass the
House. If so, then will come on the war in the
Senate.

I will say to you that I had a little flare-up in the
Senate on the subject of a bill to incorporate the
Dialectic Association of the Oberlin Collegiate Insti-
tute [a college literary society]. The passage of
the bill came on when I was the most melancholy in
regard to news from home. I said nothing in its
favor. The yeas and nays being called for, it was
lost.

The next day I got Mr. Walton from Monroe, one
of the majority, to move a reconsideration of that
vote. I seconded him and gave the Senate a short
speech, thanking the gentleman from Monroe, and
demanding my right to a reconsideration as a mem-
ber on the floor of the Senate. The motion carried
unanimously. Then I moved it be laid on the
table, which was agreed to. All the objection to the
bill seemed to be because it had the words, " Ober-
lin Collegiate Institute." I name the above so that
you may know something of the spirit existing in
the Senate in relation to Oberlin.

P. M. — Have just returned from the Methodist
church and resume. I have conversed with several
members about Oberlin. I say to them that the most

370 OBERLIN.

or all the rumors about the people there are un-
founded. They are willing for an examination even
by a committee from those most prejudiced against
Oberlin College. I say also that they are a component
part of my constituency whose rights are invaded
without any just cause, as there is not a petition pre-
sented to either branch of the Legislature this session
for a repeal of their charter. If the subject comes
up in the Senate I shall contend against it inch by
inch.

I also say that I am no Abolitionist, nor a disciple
of Oberlin, but I want to see the rights of all pro-
tected on the principle of the old Democratic motto,
" Equal and exact justice to all men."

I have opened a correspondence with H. C. Tay-
lor, of Oberlin, who is furnishing me with papers,
etc., to enable me to make defence against a repeal.
I hope the bill will not pass the House. If it does I
shall do the best I can on the subject, whether I am
condemned or applauded in my own county.

When I see the rights of people invaded with as
much vituperation as they are, right, justice to my-
self and my country urge me to rise in their defence,
though they may think differently from me on most
subjects.

NOTE. — " Oberlin Unmasked " was a scurrilous
pamphlet published by a dismissed student. — Ed.

INDEX.

Abkeyville School, 76
Accession from Lane Seminary,

50
Accommodations for Students,

39

Allen, Prof. George N., 196,
294

Alumni, 298

American Beard, 134

American Missionary Associa-
tion, 144

Amistad Captives, 137

Antislavery Discussion at Lane,

5i
Antislavery Excitement, 365
Antislavery Lecturers, 75
Antislavery Voting, in
Appeal to Corporation of Lon-
don, 209
Appendix, 305
Arnold, Mr. and Mrs., 140
Athletic Association, 262
Attendance of Young Women,

176
Avery, Dr. Charles, 213

Bailey, Dr., 54
Baker, Lieut. E. H., 164
Balance of Power, no
Bank, First National, 244

Baptism of the Spirit, 93
Barnard, Mrs., 144
Barrows, Rev. E. P., 2S7
Beardsley, Julius O., 137
Benevolence Theory, S4
Bible Classes, 257
Biblical Study, 256
Boarding Hall, A New, 44
Branch, Miss Eliza, 38
Branch, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel,

41
Brand, Rev. James, 106
Buildings Needed, 232
Building of First Church, 103
Building of Second Church, 107
Buildings, Original Cost of, 231
Buildings, Style of, 357
Burleigh, William H., 280
Burning of Classics, 71
Burrell, Mr. J. L., 295
Bushnell, Simeon, 124
Butts, L, D., 76

Cabinet, 233
Cabinet Hall, 228
Carpenter's Shop, 217
Catalogue for 1S35, 74
Cemetery, 241
Chapel, The First, 39
Chapel, Changes of, 226

372

INDEX.

Chapel Bell, 226

Chapin, Mr. Josiah, 207

Chapin, Mr. Wm. C, 215, 212

Charter, 40

Charter, Attempts to Repeal,

116, 369
Chase, Gov., Speech of, 129
China Band, 145
Christian Perfection, 91
Church, Attendance of Students,

108
Church for the College, 104
Church Organized, 47
Cincinnati Hall, 219, 67
Citizens Indicted, 123
Class Prayer Meetings, 258
Cleveland University, 278
Cochran, Prof. William, 94,

294
Co education, 173, 182
College Buildings, 216
College Chapel, 225
Ccllege Class, The First, 49
College Farm, 186
College Farm Leased, 192
College Park, 243
College Discipline, 263
College Work, 248
College Work in the War, 171
College Treasurers, 297
College Journalism, 260
College, Undenominational, 107
Collegiate Institute, The Name,

40
Colonial Hall, 69, 219
"Colonial Hall, First Service in,

70
Colonists, 10, 296
Colonists, the Earliest, 36
Colonists and Slaverv, 62

Colony, Objection to, 25, 307
Colored Population, 113
Colored Schools, 135, 145
Colored Students, in, 342
Colored Students Received, 55
Colored Student, The First, 74
Commencement, 266
Commencement in the War,

166
Commencement, The First, 46
Come-outerism, 85
Company C, 162, 176, 168
Confession of Faith, 98, 101
Conflict on Leaving Home, 22
Congregational Association, 99
Conservatory Organized, 201
Conservatory, Origin of, 197
Conservatory Endowment, 203
Consultation in New York, 58
Contributions at Oberlin, 216
Convention at Cleveland, 128
Copeland, John, 157
Covenant, The Oberlin, 25
Corporation of London, 367
Council Hall, 230
Cowles, Rev. John P., 84, 2S7
Cowles, Rev. Henry, 284
Cox, Gen. J. D., 170
Cox, Mr. Kenyon, 235
Cross, Rev. R. T., 302
Cross Lanes, Battle of, 164

Dascomb, Dr. and Mrs , 41
Dascomb, Dr. James, 275, 318
Dascomb, Mrs. M. P., 276
Dascomb Professorship, 213
Dawes, Mr. William, 293, 208
Degrees, 267

Deliberation, The First, 15
Democratic Opinion, 157

IXDEX.

</ J

Denominational Affinities, 97
Denominational Enterprises,

105
Dickinson, Mr. Charles H , 213
Discussion, Habit of, 87
Discussion on Study of Classics,

7i
Discussion Prohibited at Lane,

53
Douglass, Frederick, 85
Dresser, Amos, 77

Earlier Families, 296

Early Home Missionaries, 146

Early Spirit, 78

Ecclesiastical Relations, 97

Eells, J. H., 9S

Elm, The Historical, 21

Emancipation, Expectation of,

154
Endowment of College, 214
Endowment by Scholarships,

192
Enlargement, 50
Enlistment for the War, 163
Entire Sanctification, Question

of, 89
Excitement on Color Question,

56
Expenses of Student, 268.

Fairbanks, Calvin, 115
Fairchild, Rev. E. H., 301
Fairfield, Rev. M. W., 106
Financial Depression, 207
Finney, Rev. C. G., 65, 66, 69,

79. 279
Finney Professorship, 213
Financial History, 204
Fire Department, 239

First and Second Years, 32
Fitch, J. M., 130
Fitch, Rev. C, 86
Fires in Oberlin, 239
Flouring Mill, 43
Founding, 9

Foster, Mr. and Mrs., 85
French, Mr. Charles, 22^
French, Rev. W. C, 24'.
French Hall, 229
Fugitives, Rescue of, u3

Games, 262

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 52, 85

Gas Works, 239

Gerrit Smith's Gift, 210

Giddings, J. R., Speech of, 129

Gifford, Miss Louisa, 317

Graduation of Young Women,

180
Grahamism, 82
Gray, Prof. Elisha, 235
Grand River Institute, 76
Graves, Mr. R. R., 214
Griffin, John S., 141
Gymnasium, 262

Habeas Corpus, Applied for,

127
Hall, Mr. J. B., 296
Hall, Rev. S. R., 314
Hayes, P. C, 16S
Hazing, 265

Health of Young Women, 184
Health, The first year's 44
Hebrew, Study of, 72, 257
Hill, Mr. Hamilton, 209
Higher Law, 123
Hodge, Dr. Charles, 281
Hodge, Lutor N. W., 302

374

INDEX.

Holbrook Professorship, 213
Hotels, 43, 242
Honors and Prizes, 266
Houses, Color of, 47
House of College Farmer, 224
Hudson, Prof. T. B., 287
Hull, Mr. Charles J., 215
Hymn of Prof. Allen, 199

Inaugural Addresses, 74
Ingersoll, Prof. E. P., 195
Ingraham, David S., 135
Institution Orders, 208
Interruption of Study, 95

Jennings, Dr. Isaac, 247
John Brown's Raid, 157
Journey to Oberlin, Mr. and

Mrs. Shipherd's, 36
Journey to Cincinnati, J. J. S.,

50
Jeakins, Burford, 167

Kansas, Movement towards,

157
Keep, Rev. John, 63, 208, 292
Kedzie, Prof. W. K., 301
Kincaid, Rev. William, 106

Laboratories, 229, 234
Laboratory, The first, 222
Ladies' Board, 178
Ladies' Course, 178
Ladies' Hall, 182
Ladies' Hall, The first, 218
Ladies' Hall, The new, 227
Ladies in College Classes, 178
Lady Graduates, The first, 179
Laird, Rev. J. H., 302
Lane Seminary Students, 51

Langston, Charles H., 124
Lectures of f . D. Well, 75
Lee, Rev. S. H., 301

Letters:

J. J. Shipherd, 18, 40, 55, 337,
360, 313, 322, 325, 326, 333

Oi Colonists, 33

P. P. Stewart, 14, 305, 309

Lewis Tappan, 355, 364

A. Mahan, 346

Arthur Tappan, 356, 357, 354

Dr. Dascome, 348

Mrs. Dascomb, 350, 329

T. S. Ingersoll, 357

Joshua Leavitt, 363

Thomas Clarkson, 366

Josiah Harris, 368
Library, 232

Library, Theological, 233
Library, U. L. A., 233
Life Insurance Gifts, 215
Literary Course, 181
Literary Societies, 259, 183

Mahan, Rev. Asa, 333, 66, 351,

277, 50
Mahan and Morgan appointed,

53
Manual Labor, 186
Manual Labor, Difficulties of,

189, 194
Manual Labor, Prices, 45
Manual Labor, Relics of, 193
Manufactures, 244
Mead, Prof. Hiram, 299
Merrill, Mr. J. W., 296
Missionaries, Recent, 145
Missionary Work, 133
Missions, Self-Sustaining, 134
Mission to Canada, 135

INDEX.

375

Mission to England, 208
Mission to the Indians, 140
Mission to Jamaica, 135
Mission to West Africa, 138
Monroe, Hon. James, 215
Moral Obligations, Discussion

of, 84
Morgan, Rev. John, 54, 66, 69,

282, 336
Morgan, John P., 200
Mulberry Planting, 190
Music, 195
Music Hall, 224
Musical Union, 200

Name of Oberlin, 17

National Character, 271

Nettleton, A. B., 168

New Building, 232

New Oberlin, 296

New School Theology, 78

Newspapers, 245

Non-resistance Oberlin Doc-
trine, 156

Number of Students in the War,
170

Number of Students Frst Year,
42

Oberlin Choir, 197

Oberlin Covenant, Discussion

of, 81
Oberlin Course of Study, 249
Oberlin Diet, 331
Oberlin Evangelist, 93
Oberlin Founders, 9
Oberlin Hall, 37- 216
Oberlin Hymn-book, 198
Oberlin, its Location, 20
Oberlin in the War, 154

Oberlin in 1834, 329
Oberlin Lyceum, 42
Oberlin Orchestra, 198
Oberlin Musicians, 200
Oberlin Quarterly Review, 94
Oberlin School Teachers, 148
Oberlin Stove, 30
Oberlin Tract, 9
"Oberlin Unmasked," 368
Oberlin, Wellington Rescue,

119
Observatory, 235
Olivet College, 149
Opening Dec. 3d, 37
Opposition to the Enterprise, 48
Oratorical Association, 260
Organization of Church, 98

Parish, Mr. F. D., 295
Parmenter, Wm. W., 167
Pastoral Letter, 360, 337
Pastors of the Church, 99
Patriotism, Growth of, 161
Pease, Alonzo, 200
Pease, Mr. P. P., 32, 296
Pease, Mr. and Mrs., 351
Peck, Prof. H. E., 29S
Penfield, Prof. C. H., 299
Penny, Prof. J. B., 300
Personal Mention, 272
Petition to Board of Trustees,

57
Philosophy, Interest in, 254
Physicians, 247
Piety, Prevalent Type of, 95
Places of Worship, 103
Political Action, 109
Porter, Mr. S. D., 396
Portraits of Professors, 200
Post Office, 242

376

INDEX.

Prayers, 258

Prejudice of Neighbors, 116
Preparatory Department, 251
Prssbvtery, Connection with,

98 '
Presbytery of Richland, 146
Preston, James A., 136
President's House, 69
Principal's Prep. Dept, 301
Printing Establishments, 245
Prisoners at New Orleans, 165
Professor Street, 221
Professors at Lane, 52
Professorship Association, 65,

206
Professors' Houses, 221
Professorship of Political Sci-
ence, 215

Railroad, 237

Raymond, William M., 139

Recitation Opened, 259

Ruscuers in Jail, 130

Residents, 242

Rice, Prof. F. B., 201

Roads, 236

Roads, The Early, 43

Ryder, Prof. W. H., 300

Sabbath, Influence of, 88
Sabbath Services, 70
Salaries for Teachers, 316
Salaries of Professors, 214
Saloons, 245
Saw Mill, 37
Scovill, J. F., 37
Sears, Mr. Willard, 208, 295
Second Advent, Discussion of,

86
Second Church Organization,

106

Self Reporting, 266
Self-support, 269
Sheffield School, 76
Shipherd, John J., 10, 272
Shipherd, Mrs. Esther R., it,

273
Shipherd, James K., 316
Shustleff, Capt. G. W., 162,

165
Sidewalks, 236

Simplicity of Moral Action, 92
Slave-Catching, Attempts at,

117
Social Life, 261
Society Hall, 229
Soldiers' Monument, 172, 243
Spencer, Mrs., 144
Sports, 262
Squirrel Hunters, 169
Stanton, H. B., 67
Statement of Objects, 40
State Rights, 128
Steele, James, 139
Steele, Prof. George W., 200
Stewards and Matrons, 297
Stewart Hall, 231
Stewart, Mrs. E. C, 13, 273
Stewart, P. P., 12, 273
Stewart's Stove, 306, 312
Stone, Mrs. Valeria G., 213
Strieby, Rev. M. E., 144
Street and Hughes, Arrange-
ment with, 24
Street and Hughes, Gift of, 204
Street and Hughes the Proprie-
tors, 22
Streets of Oberlin, 235
Students Leaving Lane, 54
Students' Expenses, 45
Students from Lane, 67

INDEX.

577

Students taken Prisoners, l64
Students going to the War, 159
Sturges, Miss Susa.n M., 232
Scholarship Plan, 28
Scholarship Endowment, 210
School House, 240
School Superintendents, 241
School, The first Winter, 38
Subsidiary Scdools, 76

Tabor College, 151
Tappan Hall, 69, 220
Tappan, Arthur, Offer of, 54
Tappan, Arthur, Pledge of, 65
Tappan, Mr. Lewis, 144
Taste in Building, 222
Teachers Nominated, 314, 333
Tea and Coffee, 43, 45
Teft, Dr and Mrs., 140
Temperance Raisings, 44
Tenney, Miss Angeline. 134
Tent and Dedication, 73
Terms and Vacations, 46
Thompson, George, 139. 116
Thompson, Mr. Uriah, 296
Thome, Prof. James A., 290
Three Months Men, 169
Thursday Lecture, 258
Tobacco, 263
Todd, Rev. John, 152
Town Hall, 238
Townshead, Dr. U. S , no

Treachery, 294
Trustees, The Original, 32
Trustees' Action on t lolor* i
Students, 6 j

Tuition Remitted, 200

Underground Railroad, n \

Union Library Association, 2O0
Village of Obcrlin, 233

WOLCOTT, Mrs. S. B., 137
Waldo, Rev. S. 11., 41, 275,

322
Walker, Prof. Amasa, 291
Walton Hall, 77, 222
Weld, Theodore D. 67
Western Colleges, 152
Western Reserve, Students

from, 6S
Whipple, Prof. George, 144,

2S9
Whipple, II. E., 301
Williston, Mr. 1. P., 212
Willson, Judge, Charge of, 122
Wilson, Hiram, 135
Woodbridge, Rev. Mr., 3-4
Wright, Rev. S. G., 142

Young Peoples' Meeting

Young Women in Theology,
179

s* 0 9 6 6

Q

■II

liilil

ipii

111

■ '■■■■■■■■*
iropMn

H

III

Y.-.l-